So I saw Snow White and the Huntsman.
And a couple things bother me. First thing, and I know it's supposed to be a fantasy movie, and I'm supposed to suspend my disbelief. Which would be fine if we were talking elves, dragons, talking trees, whatever. But... The evil queen is Charlize Theron. Who is, well, you know. Pretty hot. And Snow White is... Kristen Stewart? Look, she may be "snow white," but the fairest in the land? Seriously? Not even my imagination goes that far. And who the HELL bribed the mirror to tell her it was Snow White? Look, let's review here. Charlize Theron. Evil, sexy, snappy dresser, rich, controls scores of men, queen of the land. Kristen Stewart. Plain. Wears K-Mart dresses off the rack that do absolutely nothing to complement her ... uh... figure... and can't speak a coherent sentence to save her life. Also, has the choice between Chris... Hemsworth? I think that's his name. The guy who plays Thor. And she chooses some douchebaggery duke's son? Who wears FULL PLATE ARMOR and wields... a... bow. Yea. SO. Charlize Theron, or Kristen Stewart? I'm going to go with the queen. Evil? Maybe, but no one's perfect!
So.... Who the FUCK wears full plate armor and wields a bow? Seriously? Look, genius. One, you wield a bow. Wearing Full plate armor is, shall we say, overkill, since if you are any good at your job, you never get near the battle. Two, I know, you're a duke's son, so you steal a perfectly good set of plate that a REAL knight can wear, to protect yourself as you.. shoot arrows at people from a distance. Somewhere, there's a poor knight who's hacking his way through the enemy troops wearing leather jerkin and wishing he had some goddamn ARMOR to hide all the battle scars he's got because some friggin DICK stole his armor. Also, plate is HEAVY. Which leaves us with two options. Obviously, the armor is completely fake and lightweight because a real actor would not be able to handle the weight of full platemail AND still be able to act for more than a take or two. So, let's pretend it's real platemail, and assume the duke's son is strong enough to handle the weight of full platemail. One, he'd be... a bit bulkier... and two, he'd have to be strong enough to wield a real weapon, like a sword, axe, mace, you know. Usual melee weapon stuff. Because let's face it, genius duke's son there is RUNNING FULL BORE INTO THE MIDDLE OF BATTLE... and he has no weapon to defend himself up close. Bows are a horrible defense against melee weapons. So, we've got a moronic offspring of the nobility running around in full plate mail wielding a bow. And I've noticed several instances where he just turns, shoots and fires without having ANY WARNING OF ANY KIND that there was an enemy there. So he's not only a moron, but a psychic moron. Reminds me of that new jersey medium chick. Medium? Looks like a large to me! lol
Which leads us to the speech. Now, look, I realize Snow White had just recovered from a near-fatal poisoning. I know she may not have been at her best. And I know she was imprisoned in a tower by herself for like ten years. So, her command of the language may not have been, well, you know, adequate. But.... "Iron melts! But it writhes! WHO'S MY BROTHER?" Seriously? Shit, honey, I could have literally BEEN your brother, and I'd have kept my mouth shut there. I'd have been looking around, going all like "I don't know this woman, I think she's possessed by demons, someone help her inside. Maybe a head wound." Sane, rational people, other than, you know, americans in general, do NOT respond to random gibberish by swearing fealty to the speaker. I excuse americans in general because their leaders always speak gibberish, and if they don't swear fealty to the speaker, they get shot. It's not their fault.
And yes. There are singing dwarves. And no, it's not something catchy, like Hi-ho, hi-ho, it's off to work we go.... It's... some.... really fuckin sad dwarf song that made me want to slit my wrists. And I'm not even going to MENTION Chris hemlock or whatever his name is. He was a grumpy looking Thor without a hammer. Seriously. I couldn't tell who had been constipated longer, Chris or Kristen.
So, in all, with the unfortunate death of the only person capable of acting in the entire movie, and by that I mean, Charlize Theron, all future hope of anything fun coming out of the snow white and the huntsman series is dead and buried. Unless of course they somehow resurrect Charlize Theron, which, would be the only reason I might watch a sequel.
Just to illustrate it's not just me who was, shall we say, nonplussed by the casting of Kristen Stewart as the fairest in the land... I was watching the movie with a group of my family and friends, and the minute Kristen Stewart was revealed as the older Snow White, there was a collective groan from the room full of people. I suspect much the same thing happened in the theater.
Two things before I close. One, Charlize Theron should have gotten an oscar for her staunch protrayal of the queen, not only because she was one of the only people in the movie who could act, but she did it knowing she was the only thing in the movie worth watching. That took guts. Second, Bob Hoskins, who played one of the dwarves, retired as of this movie. It wasn't exactly a swan song for him, but he's had a long and active career and I wish him a happy retirement. Hopefully his various health issues won't stop him from enjoying a peaceful existence.
Next review... The Hobbit! Part one.
Thursday, April 4, 2013
Wednesday, March 20, 2013
Game Review - Don't Starve
So I'm playing Don't Starve the last few days.
And I realize, it's an indie game. A cheap one. So it's not going to be state of the art or anything. And it's a gift, so it's not that I am not grateful, but the game... is not quite fun. I'm not sure if it's the fact that my avatar is apparently suffering from hypoglycemia, and has to eat several times a day or he dies. Or that not sleeping through the night makes him go totally insane within a matter of a day or two. Or that everything in the game, including the frogs that hop out of the bottomless ponds, is trying to kill him.
No, I think what pisses me off is, they put a morality system in.
Let's just forget for a moment that my avatar "Wilson," is apparently a college professor or something. Let's forget for a moment that he literally has to eat and sleep every few minutes (in real time) or he dies. Let's forget for a minute that the only things in the world that aren't trying to kill him, are the bunnies. But let's forget all that.
I'm not allowed to kill the bunnies because it's "morally wrong," according to the game. And also, let's forget that bunnies, even in our world, are practically MEANT to be eaten in mass quantities. Seriously, why do you think they reproduce so much? So predators can kill a few and there will still be plenty of bunnies to continue the species. It's like they were put here as a food source. If you believe in intelligent design, they were. I don't believe in intelligent design, so for simplicity's sake, let's just say the bunnies genetic survival tactic is mass breeding to ensure the survival of at least some of the population, despite massive losses to predators. Since bunnies have been around a while, it seems like a viable option.
So here you have a guy. College professor (i'm guessing). Used to the mundane world of buying lunch at the local restaurant. Apparently has the constitution of a small rodent. Has to eat and sleep every few minutes or he either goes insane or starves to death. Thrust into another goddamn world. My first order of business would be eating. Food equals survival. And... I'm not allowed to kill the ONE THING IN THE WHOLE WORLD that's not already capable of killing me, in order to feed myself? How is that fair?
So let's review our other options. Berries can be eaten. They grow on bushes. Takes forever for the bushes to regrow the berries and there's no way to plant the berries so you can grow your own bushes. And even if you could, the makers put a "Gobbler" in to eat the berries so you can't really mass harvest them for a viable food supply. So I guess berries are out.
Fishing is one option. IF you can avoid the killer frogs, which pour out of the bottomless ponds like they were portals to hell. But you can't cook the fish in your crockpot, because that just ruins it. You have to dry the fish, which essentially makes them into fish jerky. Barely counts as a snack, and takes days to dry the fish, during which time, you are starving to death. Frog legs can be eaten, again, if you can survive the waves of killer frogs, but also aren't much more than a snack as far as your ever-hungry belly is concerned. So ponds, frogs, and fish seem to be out as a viable food source.
But hey, there's crops! Supposedly my nephew, who also has the game, survives on those things. Let's see now. To make a plot of arable land you need manure from the extremely hard to find Beefaloes. So while you are searching all over for the beefaloes, you are starving to death. But let's say you get EXTREMELY lucky and manage to find them before your hunger gets too severe. So you build a plot. You need seeds to plant on the plot to get it to grow. Seeds grow on trees, right? No. Birds drop them. Sometimes. if you're lucky. But killing the birds, which is also morally wrong, doesn't get you the seeds, anyway. If the birds happen to fly down and land on the ground, once in a great while, they leave some seeds. So you find some manure, you find some seeds, and you can plant them. ONE SEED PER PLOT. Yea. I just want to know, what the HELL KIND OF FARMER PLANTS ONE SEED PER 100 SQUARE FEET OF ARABLE LAND? So in a ten by ten plot, I have... one plant growing. And.. it takes DAYS. So, you're starving the whole time the plants are growing. And when it ripens, you get... One vegetable. That's, like a snack as far as your hunger is concerned. And THEN.. to replant, you have to find more seeds.
So let me tell you my first experience with the morality system. I'm wandering around, collecting shit. Rocks, berries, seeds, logs, whatever I can find. You never know what will be useful. And I find a grassy area with a lot of rabbit holes. So I'm checking my inventory and I have enough to build a science machine, so I can build more advanced items. And eventually I get to where I can build bird traps in addition to rabbit traps. and I fence in an area with wood fencing since I have an abundance of wood nearby. And as the days go by I fall into a rhythm. Collect twigs and rope and grasses, build traps, set traps, catch rabbits and small birds, murder them (it literally says murder them as an option when you trap them, the animals go into your inventory alive and you have to slay them by hand to get the meat), and then cook the meat in a crockpot to make a dish of meatballs. Which is VERY FILLING. You can literally survive on like a couple plates of meatballs a day. So I'm stocking up on meatballs so I can eventually have enough food to explore, and my beard is growing, and I've got a spear, and wood armor, and a straw hat, and I literally look like a wilderness survivalist out on a bender. All beard and hat. And then.... the Krampus comes.
Now, the krampus, by way of explanation, is the answer to actually learning how to survive off the land. Trapping rabbits and birds, I was literally catching so many of them, that it was hard to keep up with the cooking to make the plates of meatballs. I was constantly full and starting to build up food stores. Good survival skills, eh? The Krampus comes. He's a large, lizardly looking thing, red, with a huge sack over his back. He comes and steals all your shit. Literally. Traps, chests, anything you have set out for him to steal, he's taking it. And he's faster than I am, so he runs in, steals my shit, runs out. My traps are disappearing, he's scaring all the animals running in and out so I'm not catching anything, he's just something i have to deal with. So I set myself at the opening of my camp and wait. And he comes and we do battle! Now, i managed to kill him once, but that's not enough. No, apparently, killing and eating small rabbits is SO evil in this game, that the more I do it, the more krampuses (Krampii?) that spawn. So the second one manages to kill me, and BAM! There goes my world. My camp. My tent. all my traps. All my stored food. Gone.
So how does one survive this game? Clearly starving to death slowly is your only option. The search for food is pretty much your overriding concern from the moment you begin. Supposedly there might be some way to return to your home dimension, but finding all the parts would be impossible without starving to death. I don't really see the point. How is starving to death in a virtual universe in any way, fun? Maybe I am missing something.
I don't really get the whole genre, i suppose. For many people, where the next meal is coming from is a worry in reality. It's never fun. I don't want to get off on a whole rich people vs poor people rant, but if rich people think hustling your buns off to find your next meal is fun, they really should try it in reality some time. Look, I know everyone's idea of fun can be different. But starving really doesn't seem like my idea of fun. Has anyone who has ever wondered where the hell their next meal is coming from, actually thought it was fun at the time? I highly doubt it. Why do people think that is fun? Time consuming, yes. Fun? Nope. And I';m not even technically poor. just the few occasions when I've missed a single meal have been rough. I can't imagine wondering where EVERY meal is going to come from, would be a fun way to spend a lifetime. Sounds pretty goddamn ridiculous to me. So does that mean, rich people fantasize about being poor, and poor people fantasize about being rich, and that's why they play the games they do? Shit. Rich people, just give the poor people your money, and we'll all trade places. Okay? Deal.
So, I've decided. If Don't Starve doesn't like me being an evil dick who murders small animals for food, too damn bad. If I have to be a murderer to survive, I'm doing it! It's just a game. The squeals of dying rabbits and small animals shouldn't give me undue pleasure, right? Exactly. I'm only doing it to survive, not because slaughtering hundreds of bunnies by hand brings me any joy.
MUA HA HA HA HAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!
Sorry. Evil laugh slipped out. I'll try and keep a lid on it while I play. And FEAST on the MEAT of THOUSANDS of bunnies. Yea. MMM. Rabbit stew. Screw you, Krampus. Eat spear point.
Saturday, March 9, 2013
Review - The Eiger Sanction
Yea, I know. It's been out for almost 40 years. So?
So I'm watching the Eiger Sanction on Netflix the other day. And you know, Clint Eastwood is usually pretty dependable as far as good movies go. if you're a guy, anyway. He does action, and... well there's... ok, so just action. My point is, his movies often have a lot of, oh, what's the word... Action. Right.
The Eiger Sanction is about a retired assassin (bruce willis' inspiration for his many movie roles, no doubt) who's also a retired mountain climber who's now a college professor. An Art professor. I guess art was always his main passion in life, according to the character, but that's neither here nor there. I'll go along with it, crazy as it sounds. So this guy Johnathan Hemlock (Clint Eastwood) is going around college, doing his teaching thing and inspiring wet panties everywhere, when his old boss asks him to take on another assassination. Or what the old boss likes to call a "Sanction." Now Hemlock is reluctant to do this, mainly because he thinks it's all pointless and if he keeps doing assassinations he's bound to get killed eventually, and like any sane person, he doesn't want to die. Although, i'm not sure about the sanity of a person who climbs up the sides of mountains, but hey, that's a personal opinion. So the old boss wants him to kill two people, or two sanctions, and killing the first one is no big deal, but the second one is likely to occur on the mountain known as the Eiger. Thus comes the name of the movie, the Eiger Sanction. And all he knows about the second man is, he has a limp. This comes into play later.
Now as I've already mentioned, Clint, err, Hemlock, is uniquely suited to this task, both because he's an assassin, and because he used to climb mountains. Specifically, he tried climbing the Eiger twice before, and failed both times. So Clint is eventually tricked, talked, cajoled and threatened into taking the job. Apparently we are supposed to feel something for this retired assassin/art professor because he thinks killing people is pointless, despite taking the first job for money and the second job for revenge. So it's off to train, and then to whatever european country the Eiger is in, to get the job done, and there's kooky hijinks and nutty comedic happenings along the way. Or maybe that's hangover 2 I am thinking of.
Now, I don't want to ruin the movie for anyone, if, you know, you haven't managed to see it in the last 38 years. It's a decent movie, I mean, there's some gunplay and a little fighting and lots of mountain climbing and some gorgeous alpian scenery. And by Alpian, I mean, uh, scenery in the Alps. Because I think that's where the Eiger is. And I think there's even some nudity in there somewhere, but don't quote me on that, because I'm half in the bag. But here's my problem with the movie...
Hemlock never actually assassinates anyone. I mean seriously, for an assassin, he literally won't kill anyone. What the fuck kind of assassin doesn't kill anyone? Supposedly old Hemlock has had a long and effective career as an assassin, but nope, doesn't actually murder anyone in the ENTIRE MOVIE. Makes no sense to me, but here, let me run down the entire physical action of hemlock, in order, and I don't think this actually gives away anything important... He throws a guy out of his office, shoots a guy in self defense, punches a guy (who then falls through a window and falls to his death), beats up a guy, shoots another guy in self defense, drives a guy 300 miles into the desert and leaves him there to find his own way back.. and, just as an aside here... SIX HUNDRED MILES ON ONE TANK OF GAS? back in the 70's? Are you SHITTING ME? And all in one DAY? yea, right. But no, quite clearly, we see the mile marker flip from 199 to 499 and tick over to 500 miles in the blink of an eye. And amazingly, it's still daylight when he stops the jeep, lets the guy out into the desert, and drives off... another 300 miles to go home, and he arrives before dinner is served, I am sure. Completely disregard that there are no roads, he's just amblin along, goes back the same way, yep sure. anyway, moving on. So the guy in the desert eventually dies, but did hemlock actually kill him? No, the desert did. or the guy's own incompetence at finding water in the desert, I suppose. So then hemlock beats a guy up, tries to save a group of people, he fails, and then, when he finally finds out who the guy is that he's after... he lets him go. Yea. So the closest thing to cold-blooded murder he does in the entire movie is leave a guy out in the desert. Alive. Did he have a gun? Yes. Had the guy already tried to kill him several times? Yep. He just doesn't like loud bangs, apparently. Oh, he did hit a chick (and by chick, I mean, a woman, don't take my pseudo-macho-bs seriously) once, but again, it was in self defense. She was trying to kill him. And she's fine afterwards. So? What? I don't get it.
Here's something else I don't get. Now here's a bit of a spoiler, so, feel free to turn your head and cough, or, whatever it is you do to get through these long and probably boring posts. George Kennedy is a wonderful actor, but he's a pretty large guy, and by large, I mean, a bit chunky. I am myself a bit chunky so don't take offense, George. I am sure even at your age you could still kick my ass. So George is Hemlock's mountain climbing trainer. And granted, you don't always have to do something better than someone else to train them, you just have to know how to do it better, but when George, who looks like he's about 275, maybe 300 pounds, can outrun Hemlock without breaking a sweat, well, Hemlock must be in pretty sad shape. So. Here we have hemlock trudging along behind George, who's just flying along like he owns the place, which, actually, he does, since it's his ranch Hemlock is training on, and George would certainly know the way, and look! George doesn't have a limp. What's that? Well of course he doesn't have a limp, you say? EXACTLY. No limp. Just flies along in the arid mountains of the southwest without even slowing his stride. And yet, he goes along with good old Hemlock to the Eiger, and BAM there's a limp! I guess the cold does bad things to his frostbite? or arthritis? Something. So the temperature drops below 50, and he can barely walk, but at 70 degrees, he's crankin along like a marathoner. Sure. Now, you're wondering if this limp identifies him as the guy hemlock is after. WHO THE HELL KNOWS? You're saying just because he has a damn limp, he's the guy Hemlock is supposed to kill? Well, maybe you're right, what the fuck do I know, like there's not a thousand guys in the Alps alone who walk with a limp. Shit, I have a limp and I'm not even in the Alps. Am I next on Hemlock's list of guys to kill in self defense? Could be! Stupid way to identify someone as the guy you're supposed to kill, don't you think? Yea, I agree. Don't worry, my limp's not permanent, I injured my quadriceps in a tragic blimp accident over macho grande. It'll heal.
So there it is in a nusthell. Retired assassin kills a bunch of people in self defense, almost dies on a mountain, and meets a nice black lady named Jemima. Jemima Brown. Yea. Don't ask me, I didn't name her. It was the 70's, dude, don't get me started. Have you seen Blacula? You want a movie with stereotypes, watch that.
What else is going on. Hmmm. Well, somehow I am always the bad guy. I'm sitting around playing Minecraft this evening (yea, on a friday, I know right? no social life) and my nephew and his lady friend pop into my server, as usual. So if I'm too quiet they think I'm sulking and if i say too much they leave so I decide on something safe. Small talk. The weather! So i'm chatting about the weather and my nephew's gf tells me I know nothing (it's the damn weather, what do I need, a degree?), and when i try to explain myself, she ragequits. Or, as my nephew explains it, she left because she didn't want to get into a pointless argument. What argument? Who knows. I was trying to talk about the weather with someone who I thought knew about the weather. Would make sense to me, but like i always say, WTF do I know? I'm apparently the bad guy who's trying to start a brawl. So my nephew defends his GF, which, apparently, is his job, because i was attacking her. Despite the fact that i wasn't attacking anyone, and she doesn't need defending, because I was just trying to talk, you know, that thing people do to communicate with one another occasionally? Right, I guess talking was a bad idea. Should have kept my mouth shut and let them think I was sulking. Anyway, so my nephew gets all defensive about her ragequitting because I assumed I knew something about the weather and she apparently wants to be the foremost expert in the world, so I am not allowed to know anything, damn me to hell. It's all my fault for having a baseline knowledge of some general topics of conversation. I'll stick to games and movies from now on, probably safer. They don't generally talk back. So I'm trying to explain to my nephew what i was trying to say, and he's just either pretending not to understand, and comparing me to how my other nephew picks his computer parts? Yea, I don't know, i really got nothing on that one. I don't know why that would come up. So I try and explain myself and this is where the argument gets completely pointless, because I ask him a simple question like "what direction do you expect the sun to rise tomorrow morning?" to get my point across, and he can't even answer that one without arguing the point, so I give up. I ragequit. Because at that point, I'm apparently the bad guy who was picking on his gf and he has to be the macho asshole defending her who won't even accede that the sun rises in the east so I can explain what I was saying to him. So I give up. I'll be the bad guy. Somehow I always am around here. People joke around with me constantly, I joke back, and I'm the bad guy. I get verbally attacked, try to defend myself, I am the bad guy. People prank me, I prank back, OOPS not allowed! I get in an argument with my mother, and try to tell my sister what the argument was about, and I am the bad guy because I don't understand women. Who the FUCK cares whether I understand women or not? Women are NUTS! There IS no understanding them because once you think you understand them, they change their behavior to keep you on your toes. Women are like that. I don't give a shit-all about understanding women, men, small poodles, ANYONE, i just want to talk to another goddamn human being once in a while without having to argue my way through the rest of the damn evening, but is that too much to ask? Well fuck me, I guess so.
Other than that, well, I'm struggling with a chronic sinus infection, as usual all winter, it's causing me some eye trouble which i can't decide is either a detached retina (which is pretty bad) or just pressure from the sinuses (common with sinus trouble and nothing much to worry about). I can see fine, so I doubt it's anything serious, it's just damned annoying along with the whole face-pain thing. But, I think it happened last winter too, because I vaguely remember searching the internet last winter for information on detached retinas, so if it got better last summer (which it did, as sinus infections do) it's probably nothing. I generally see an eye doc every couple years, but I have no money at the moment. So there's THAT additional stress and distraction in addition to that whole lack of a job thing I got goin on. But hey! Those are just my good qualities! Have I mentioned I am also the bad guy all the time? lol Glad I still have my sense of humor. Sorely needed on a daily basis nowadays.
At least I can still blog without it giving me shit and defending itself against me being the bad guy. Unless, of course, I've offended one of the two or three people who actually read my blog. I wouldn't doubt it. But enough about the evil villain that is me. Now, to sleep, perchance, to dream. Preferably dreams without pain in them.
So I'm watching the Eiger Sanction on Netflix the other day. And you know, Clint Eastwood is usually pretty dependable as far as good movies go. if you're a guy, anyway. He does action, and... well there's... ok, so just action. My point is, his movies often have a lot of, oh, what's the word... Action. Right.
The Eiger Sanction is about a retired assassin (bruce willis' inspiration for his many movie roles, no doubt) who's also a retired mountain climber who's now a college professor. An Art professor. I guess art was always his main passion in life, according to the character, but that's neither here nor there. I'll go along with it, crazy as it sounds. So this guy Johnathan Hemlock (Clint Eastwood) is going around college, doing his teaching thing and inspiring wet panties everywhere, when his old boss asks him to take on another assassination. Or what the old boss likes to call a "Sanction." Now Hemlock is reluctant to do this, mainly because he thinks it's all pointless and if he keeps doing assassinations he's bound to get killed eventually, and like any sane person, he doesn't want to die. Although, i'm not sure about the sanity of a person who climbs up the sides of mountains, but hey, that's a personal opinion. So the old boss wants him to kill two people, or two sanctions, and killing the first one is no big deal, but the second one is likely to occur on the mountain known as the Eiger. Thus comes the name of the movie, the Eiger Sanction. And all he knows about the second man is, he has a limp. This comes into play later.
Now as I've already mentioned, Clint, err, Hemlock, is uniquely suited to this task, both because he's an assassin, and because he used to climb mountains. Specifically, he tried climbing the Eiger twice before, and failed both times. So Clint is eventually tricked, talked, cajoled and threatened into taking the job. Apparently we are supposed to feel something for this retired assassin/art professor because he thinks killing people is pointless, despite taking the first job for money and the second job for revenge. So it's off to train, and then to whatever european country the Eiger is in, to get the job done, and there's kooky hijinks and nutty comedic happenings along the way. Or maybe that's hangover 2 I am thinking of.
Now, I don't want to ruin the movie for anyone, if, you know, you haven't managed to see it in the last 38 years. It's a decent movie, I mean, there's some gunplay and a little fighting and lots of mountain climbing and some gorgeous alpian scenery. And by Alpian, I mean, uh, scenery in the Alps. Because I think that's where the Eiger is. And I think there's even some nudity in there somewhere, but don't quote me on that, because I'm half in the bag. But here's my problem with the movie...
Hemlock never actually assassinates anyone. I mean seriously, for an assassin, he literally won't kill anyone. What the fuck kind of assassin doesn't kill anyone? Supposedly old Hemlock has had a long and effective career as an assassin, but nope, doesn't actually murder anyone in the ENTIRE MOVIE. Makes no sense to me, but here, let me run down the entire physical action of hemlock, in order, and I don't think this actually gives away anything important... He throws a guy out of his office, shoots a guy in self defense, punches a guy (who then falls through a window and falls to his death), beats up a guy, shoots another guy in self defense, drives a guy 300 miles into the desert and leaves him there to find his own way back.. and, just as an aside here... SIX HUNDRED MILES ON ONE TANK OF GAS? back in the 70's? Are you SHITTING ME? And all in one DAY? yea, right. But no, quite clearly, we see the mile marker flip from 199 to 499 and tick over to 500 miles in the blink of an eye. And amazingly, it's still daylight when he stops the jeep, lets the guy out into the desert, and drives off... another 300 miles to go home, and he arrives before dinner is served, I am sure. Completely disregard that there are no roads, he's just amblin along, goes back the same way, yep sure. anyway, moving on. So the guy in the desert eventually dies, but did hemlock actually kill him? No, the desert did. or the guy's own incompetence at finding water in the desert, I suppose. So then hemlock beats a guy up, tries to save a group of people, he fails, and then, when he finally finds out who the guy is that he's after... he lets him go. Yea. So the closest thing to cold-blooded murder he does in the entire movie is leave a guy out in the desert. Alive. Did he have a gun? Yes. Had the guy already tried to kill him several times? Yep. He just doesn't like loud bangs, apparently. Oh, he did hit a chick (and by chick, I mean, a woman, don't take my pseudo-macho-bs seriously) once, but again, it was in self defense. She was trying to kill him. And she's fine afterwards. So? What? I don't get it.
Here's something else I don't get. Now here's a bit of a spoiler, so, feel free to turn your head and cough, or, whatever it is you do to get through these long and probably boring posts. George Kennedy is a wonderful actor, but he's a pretty large guy, and by large, I mean, a bit chunky. I am myself a bit chunky so don't take offense, George. I am sure even at your age you could still kick my ass. So George is Hemlock's mountain climbing trainer. And granted, you don't always have to do something better than someone else to train them, you just have to know how to do it better, but when George, who looks like he's about 275, maybe 300 pounds, can outrun Hemlock without breaking a sweat, well, Hemlock must be in pretty sad shape. So. Here we have hemlock trudging along behind George, who's just flying along like he owns the place, which, actually, he does, since it's his ranch Hemlock is training on, and George would certainly know the way, and look! George doesn't have a limp. What's that? Well of course he doesn't have a limp, you say? EXACTLY. No limp. Just flies along in the arid mountains of the southwest without even slowing his stride. And yet, he goes along with good old Hemlock to the Eiger, and BAM there's a limp! I guess the cold does bad things to his frostbite? or arthritis? Something. So the temperature drops below 50, and he can barely walk, but at 70 degrees, he's crankin along like a marathoner. Sure. Now, you're wondering if this limp identifies him as the guy hemlock is after. WHO THE HELL KNOWS? You're saying just because he has a damn limp, he's the guy Hemlock is supposed to kill? Well, maybe you're right, what the fuck do I know, like there's not a thousand guys in the Alps alone who walk with a limp. Shit, I have a limp and I'm not even in the Alps. Am I next on Hemlock's list of guys to kill in self defense? Could be! Stupid way to identify someone as the guy you're supposed to kill, don't you think? Yea, I agree. Don't worry, my limp's not permanent, I injured my quadriceps in a tragic blimp accident over macho grande. It'll heal.
So there it is in a nusthell. Retired assassin kills a bunch of people in self defense, almost dies on a mountain, and meets a nice black lady named Jemima. Jemima Brown. Yea. Don't ask me, I didn't name her. It was the 70's, dude, don't get me started. Have you seen Blacula? You want a movie with stereotypes, watch that.
What else is going on. Hmmm. Well, somehow I am always the bad guy. I'm sitting around playing Minecraft this evening (yea, on a friday, I know right? no social life) and my nephew and his lady friend pop into my server, as usual. So if I'm too quiet they think I'm sulking and if i say too much they leave so I decide on something safe. Small talk. The weather! So i'm chatting about the weather and my nephew's gf tells me I know nothing (it's the damn weather, what do I need, a degree?), and when i try to explain myself, she ragequits. Or, as my nephew explains it, she left because she didn't want to get into a pointless argument. What argument? Who knows. I was trying to talk about the weather with someone who I thought knew about the weather. Would make sense to me, but like i always say, WTF do I know? I'm apparently the bad guy who's trying to start a brawl. So my nephew defends his GF, which, apparently, is his job, because i was attacking her. Despite the fact that i wasn't attacking anyone, and she doesn't need defending, because I was just trying to talk, you know, that thing people do to communicate with one another occasionally? Right, I guess talking was a bad idea. Should have kept my mouth shut and let them think I was sulking. Anyway, so my nephew gets all defensive about her ragequitting because I assumed I knew something about the weather and she apparently wants to be the foremost expert in the world, so I am not allowed to know anything, damn me to hell. It's all my fault for having a baseline knowledge of some general topics of conversation. I'll stick to games and movies from now on, probably safer. They don't generally talk back. So I'm trying to explain to my nephew what i was trying to say, and he's just either pretending not to understand, and comparing me to how my other nephew picks his computer parts? Yea, I don't know, i really got nothing on that one. I don't know why that would come up. So I try and explain myself and this is where the argument gets completely pointless, because I ask him a simple question like "what direction do you expect the sun to rise tomorrow morning?" to get my point across, and he can't even answer that one without arguing the point, so I give up. I ragequit. Because at that point, I'm apparently the bad guy who was picking on his gf and he has to be the macho asshole defending her who won't even accede that the sun rises in the east so I can explain what I was saying to him. So I give up. I'll be the bad guy. Somehow I always am around here. People joke around with me constantly, I joke back, and I'm the bad guy. I get verbally attacked, try to defend myself, I am the bad guy. People prank me, I prank back, OOPS not allowed! I get in an argument with my mother, and try to tell my sister what the argument was about, and I am the bad guy because I don't understand women. Who the FUCK cares whether I understand women or not? Women are NUTS! There IS no understanding them because once you think you understand them, they change their behavior to keep you on your toes. Women are like that. I don't give a shit-all about understanding women, men, small poodles, ANYONE, i just want to talk to another goddamn human being once in a while without having to argue my way through the rest of the damn evening, but is that too much to ask? Well fuck me, I guess so.
Other than that, well, I'm struggling with a chronic sinus infection, as usual all winter, it's causing me some eye trouble which i can't decide is either a detached retina (which is pretty bad) or just pressure from the sinuses (common with sinus trouble and nothing much to worry about). I can see fine, so I doubt it's anything serious, it's just damned annoying along with the whole face-pain thing. But, I think it happened last winter too, because I vaguely remember searching the internet last winter for information on detached retinas, so if it got better last summer (which it did, as sinus infections do) it's probably nothing. I generally see an eye doc every couple years, but I have no money at the moment. So there's THAT additional stress and distraction in addition to that whole lack of a job thing I got goin on. But hey! Those are just my good qualities! Have I mentioned I am also the bad guy all the time? lol Glad I still have my sense of humor. Sorely needed on a daily basis nowadays.
At least I can still blog without it giving me shit and defending itself against me being the bad guy. Unless, of course, I've offended one of the two or three people who actually read my blog. I wouldn't doubt it. But enough about the evil villain that is me. Now, to sleep, perchance, to dream. Preferably dreams without pain in them.
Monday, February 18, 2013
Review - Cars
Yea, I know. Cars has been out, like FOREVER. But I just wanted to bring light to this malice-filled, perverted mess of a pixar film. Plus, I just saw it for the first time.
So here's the basic plotline. Sentient racing car that will do anything to win gets stuck in a small town and learns there is more to life than winning.
First off, WTF. More to life than winning? What a dweeb. Come on. Does anyone still listen to this disney-pixar chant that insists on making total slackers out of anyone and everyone? You've heard it a thousand times. Stop and smell the roses. Take the path less traveled. Be different. Bah! What nonsense! If school and work have taught me one thing in life, it's that they want everyone to be exactly the same. Deviants are punished, socially and sometimes criminally. The more deviant you are, the less people like you. If you want friends, be like everyone else! And WIN! Because even if winners don't have friends, they get MONEY! That's right. CASH. And when you have cash, everyone wants to be your friend! Who the hell wants to be friends with a homeless poor person who lives in an alley and smells like rancid rat feces? NOBODY. Exactly.
Second, what the hell is up with everyone making fun of maynard? Yea, let's pick on the retarded old truck with the bad teeth! Laugh at him! he drives backwards! BWAHAHAHAHAHAAAA!!!! Jesus Christ. If I've said this once I've said it a million times, mentally-challenged people have feelings too. You can't just belittle someone because you think you are smarter than they are. They can't help being born with the brains god gave a spoon, any more than you can help being born with two brain cells to rub together, or being born with a mother that has the clap. It's just what you got stuck with in life. Some hands of cards are better than others! It's how you play them that matters! Assuming you win, of course, See rule one. If you lose, you should be made fun of. Loser. L-hoooo.. ser, as Ace Ventura would say.
Third, how perverted is this film? Look, I would fuck the SHIT out of my Porsche if I had one, on an hourly basis. But this film is for KIDS. We absolutely, do not, under any circumstances, at any time, want kids fucking my Porsche. Even if I had one, which I do not, it would still be revolting as hell, illegal, and morally and mentally wrong! I can't even begin to describe how wrong it would be. But all through the movie, the main character is falling in love with a Porsche. We see scenes of them splashing through puddles together, coyly flirting amongst others, and finally, there's the requisite Porsche-driving-across-a-bridge-in-front-of-a-waterfall scene. Not even blurred out! Jesus christ! If I wanted to see porn, I'd browse for it on the internet! But nooooooo, there it is, right in the middle of a damned kids film! I mean, it's fine if you want to see that sort of thing in an adult movie. I am a huge advocate of an adult's right to see and do whatever kink gets them off at any given time. In fact I think there's a magazine in france entirely devoted to sex with porsches. I think it's called Fahvergnugen. Don't ask me what it means in french, i can barely manage english most days. But in any case, come on, you bastard frenchies! Stop sexualizing our children!
I'm not even going to bring up the secondary characters. A couple of poor italian mechanics got manhandled by a fire engine that cries despite being bigger than everyone else, a hippie van promotes "naturally grown gas" throughout the movie, and bessie, that tar-spewing, ugly-ass repaving machine is obviously an anecdote about the state of American politics! Well I happen to like my american politics ugly-ass and tar-spewing, so FUCK YOU, Cars! FUCK YOU! Bessie, indeed.
And what the HELL is up with the scene where maynard and the main hero go into the field and start tractor tipping? Jaysus H keerist on a pogo stick. Haven't we already established that it's WRONG to tip over tractors? Poor bastards are sleeping in a field and then they wake up tipped over and what happens then? THEY DIE OF EXPOSURE AND ROT. That's right kiddies, Go tip over a cow sometime and watch it squirm and moo because IT CAN'T GET BACK UP, EVER!!!!! Poor farmer has to go and rent a fork lift and a crane and shit just to get the poor things back right side up, and then they need psychological counseling for MONTHS just to get through the TRAUMA. And what are you doing? TIPPING THEM OVER AGAIN! Bastard kids. STAY OFF MY LAWN!
And then to top it all off, Maynard is flying around in the helicopter at the end, and he says "I'm happier than a tornado in a trailer park!" Oh. My. GOD. How politically incorrect is this? If the writers had ever actually been in a trailer during a tornado, they would not make jokes. The destruction wrought amongst trailer trash is nothing short of heart rending, and they are making FUN of it? Christ. I was in a trailer during a tornado once and despite repeated washing, my tiger-fur bikini briefs STILL have skid marks. That shit is nothing to laugh at, EVER.
In short, Cars is the worst movie ever made. it defiles all that is good and holy in the world, and makes you laugh at it. Some things can't be unseen, and Cars will RUIN YOUR SOUL. if I could go back in time and organize a protest while it was still being shown at the theaters, I would! After I went back in time and became a gladiator, of course. You have been warned.
(the preceding post is written entirely for comedic purposes, and should not be confused with the author's true thoughts at any time or for any reason. Failure to do so will result in a distinct lack of laughter and probably permanent drain bamage.)
So here's the basic plotline. Sentient racing car that will do anything to win gets stuck in a small town and learns there is more to life than winning.
First off, WTF. More to life than winning? What a dweeb. Come on. Does anyone still listen to this disney-pixar chant that insists on making total slackers out of anyone and everyone? You've heard it a thousand times. Stop and smell the roses. Take the path less traveled. Be different. Bah! What nonsense! If school and work have taught me one thing in life, it's that they want everyone to be exactly the same. Deviants are punished, socially and sometimes criminally. The more deviant you are, the less people like you. If you want friends, be like everyone else! And WIN! Because even if winners don't have friends, they get MONEY! That's right. CASH. And when you have cash, everyone wants to be your friend! Who the hell wants to be friends with a homeless poor person who lives in an alley and smells like rancid rat feces? NOBODY. Exactly.
Second, what the hell is up with everyone making fun of maynard? Yea, let's pick on the retarded old truck with the bad teeth! Laugh at him! he drives backwards! BWAHAHAHAHAHAAAA!!!! Jesus Christ. If I've said this once I've said it a million times, mentally-challenged people have feelings too. You can't just belittle someone because you think you are smarter than they are. They can't help being born with the brains god gave a spoon, any more than you can help being born with two brain cells to rub together, or being born with a mother that has the clap. It's just what you got stuck with in life. Some hands of cards are better than others! It's how you play them that matters! Assuming you win, of course, See rule one. If you lose, you should be made fun of. Loser. L-hoooo.. ser, as Ace Ventura would say.
Third, how perverted is this film? Look, I would fuck the SHIT out of my Porsche if I had one, on an hourly basis. But this film is for KIDS. We absolutely, do not, under any circumstances, at any time, want kids fucking my Porsche. Even if I had one, which I do not, it would still be revolting as hell, illegal, and morally and mentally wrong! I can't even begin to describe how wrong it would be. But all through the movie, the main character is falling in love with a Porsche. We see scenes of them splashing through puddles together, coyly flirting amongst others, and finally, there's the requisite Porsche-driving-across-a-bridge-in-front-of-a-waterfall scene. Not even blurred out! Jesus christ! If I wanted to see porn, I'd browse for it on the internet! But nooooooo, there it is, right in the middle of a damned kids film! I mean, it's fine if you want to see that sort of thing in an adult movie. I am a huge advocate of an adult's right to see and do whatever kink gets them off at any given time. In fact I think there's a magazine in france entirely devoted to sex with porsches. I think it's called Fahvergnugen. Don't ask me what it means in french, i can barely manage english most days. But in any case, come on, you bastard frenchies! Stop sexualizing our children!
I'm not even going to bring up the secondary characters. A couple of poor italian mechanics got manhandled by a fire engine that cries despite being bigger than everyone else, a hippie van promotes "naturally grown gas" throughout the movie, and bessie, that tar-spewing, ugly-ass repaving machine is obviously an anecdote about the state of American politics! Well I happen to like my american politics ugly-ass and tar-spewing, so FUCK YOU, Cars! FUCK YOU! Bessie, indeed.
And what the HELL is up with the scene where maynard and the main hero go into the field and start tractor tipping? Jaysus H keerist on a pogo stick. Haven't we already established that it's WRONG to tip over tractors? Poor bastards are sleeping in a field and then they wake up tipped over and what happens then? THEY DIE OF EXPOSURE AND ROT. That's right kiddies, Go tip over a cow sometime and watch it squirm and moo because IT CAN'T GET BACK UP, EVER!!!!! Poor farmer has to go and rent a fork lift and a crane and shit just to get the poor things back right side up, and then they need psychological counseling for MONTHS just to get through the TRAUMA. And what are you doing? TIPPING THEM OVER AGAIN! Bastard kids. STAY OFF MY LAWN!
And then to top it all off, Maynard is flying around in the helicopter at the end, and he says "I'm happier than a tornado in a trailer park!" Oh. My. GOD. How politically incorrect is this? If the writers had ever actually been in a trailer during a tornado, they would not make jokes. The destruction wrought amongst trailer trash is nothing short of heart rending, and they are making FUN of it? Christ. I was in a trailer during a tornado once and despite repeated washing, my tiger-fur bikini briefs STILL have skid marks. That shit is nothing to laugh at, EVER.
In short, Cars is the worst movie ever made. it defiles all that is good and holy in the world, and makes you laugh at it. Some things can't be unseen, and Cars will RUIN YOUR SOUL. if I could go back in time and organize a protest while it was still being shown at the theaters, I would! After I went back in time and became a gladiator, of course. You have been warned.
(the preceding post is written entirely for comedic purposes, and should not be confused with the author's true thoughts at any time or for any reason. Failure to do so will result in a distinct lack of laughter and probably permanent drain bamage.)
Sunday, February 10, 2013
Reviews - House of Cards, Battleship, Chronicle
Don't you hate it when you accidentally press the wrong button and end up posting a blank page? Sigh.
So, three reviews. I would have spaced them out a bit more, as I seem to be ending up posting about once or twice a month at best lately, but I just saw Battleship and Chronicle this weekend, and caught the last of House of Cards (a Netflix miniseries). So, you guys are stuck with one big tripartite review.
Let's take House of Cards first, since it's fresh in my mind. It's all about politics, basically. And not even accurate politics, as far as I know. First, let me say this, I am neither an expert in, nor do I ever really think about, politics. Other than to say, I don't care. I don't vote, because it doesn't seem to matter who gets elected, they all seem to either be corrupt or ineffective. Perhaps you see this as a nihilistic attitude, but I am simply pragmatic about it... my vote does not matter, so what's the point of wasting my time? Now let's move on.
House of Cards is a look at the inner world of one Congressman Frank Underwood, a man who supported the incumbent (fictional) president, but got screwed over when it came time to hand out the rewards for his support. Over the course of the 13-part series on Netflix, Frank tries to not only take his vengeance out on the man who wronged him, but gain more power for himself as a result. Sounds like a good revenge story, eh? We all like a good revenge story! Doesn't quite work out that way, however.
So here's what I think about it. It might seem pretty realistic except for the fact that Congressman don't write their own legislation, a process routinely shown over the course of the series. As I understand it (and admittedly, my source is the internet since, as I said, I know nothing about politics), lobbyists actually write the bills that are turned into law, and congressmen just get re-elected so they can keep taking money not only from the people but from the corporations as well. Hey, don't look at me, as far as I can tell, that's the internet's take on how congress works, and we all know they can't put stuff on the internet that isn't true, right? lol It does go into great detail about how the oil corporation keeps a lobbyist practically on Frank's front doorstep just in case they want him to do something, and shows a lot of underhanded dealings as far as that goes. In the world of House of Cards, corporations certainly are the bad guy. They apparently operate with no rules and can pretty much do whatever they want, while adhering to the ridiculously negligent laws about them dealing directly with congressmen. So by comparison, I suppose a man like Frank Underwood is a holy knight in shining white armor.
The series isn't really consistent, though. At one turn Frank is coordinating a series of back-door dealings to assure his influence, and the next moment he's rambling incoherently on live TV. They never fully explained why he can seem so brilliant one moment and so idiotic the next. I will say Frank seems like a typical congressman... more interested in advancing his own power and wealth than producing anything good out of life, and he doesn't care who he has to hurt to do it. There's one scene at the very beginning where Frank ends the life of a dog who gets hit by a car, something I took to be a merciful act, but seems more to foreshadow his absolutely cold-hearted behavior through the rest of the series. I found it hard to root for Frank, or to identify with anyone at all in the series, quite honestly. They all seem to be lying, backstabbing people, only concerned with advancing their own agendas despite whatever interpersonal bridges they have to burn. Alliances seem to form among enemies between one episode and the next, and powerful people seem to break otherwise beneficial bonds that have been working. Maybe that's politics, but it seems a god-awfully inefficient way to do things. Also, the series ends rather ineffectively, not that we can't see where things are going, but I suppose, it sets things up for next season. Given that it's been some time and I have yet to see another season of Lilyhammer (netflix's first series seems to be hanging in limbo), I don't hold out hope I'll see the end of this 13-part setup.
Overall, I would say, only watch the series if you like politics, enjoy excellent acting (excellent acting abounds here, spotlighting kevin spacey), or have a thing for Kate Mara (arguably the leader of the supporting cast on the opposition side), which, I do. She has a fine rear end unless they used a stand in, which is entirely possible, and the rest of her is not unattractive either, I must say. lol No monsters, very few boobs, lots of betrayals, backstabbing and such. Politics as usual. Moving on.
Battleship did not seem like that decent of a movie, quite honestly. When I saw the trailers for the giant robots in the water, I immediately thought "transformers clone" and nearly disregarded it completely. However, HBO advertised it heavily this week and I was bored so I took a gander at it.
Basically, we find an earth-like planet, and decide to beam a signal directly at it in hopes of contacting alien life. Much like one of the scientists involved in this endeavor, I already thought that this was a bad idea. Oh not for the obvious reasons, but two things stood out. One, if we are beaming a signal directly at an alien planet, what are we hitting when it gets there? The signal would have to be pretty powerful to go that far, so, are we talking, some poor alien shleb on Earth "2" is sitting there reading his morning paper when an alien laser beam fries him and all that's left is his slippers? I would take that as an attack, quite frankly, not an attempt to communicate. Also, we are never told what actually is the content of the message or signal we are sending. Could be reruns of reality TV, in which case, I'm not surprised they sent military warships in response. Which, is what happens, while a bunch of navy vessels are undergoing battle-exercises in the ocean around Hawaii, alien ships drop into the ocean there, erect a forcefield, and try to re-establish contact with their homeworld. They don't seem to attack civilians, as far as I can tell, which would seem to be a direct invitation to begin some sort of dialog to me, but what sort of movie would that be? Uninteresting! Blast the shit out of the friendly buggers. Much more fun that way.
I don't think I've been this pleased by an alien-invasion movie since Independence Day, and while it didn't have the star-power, acting talent or overall celebratory feel of that movie, it did remind me of it quite a bit. Liam Neeson was the only actor I can really think of offhand that was a big name in that movie, other than Rihanna (her first acting debut? maybe), but the otherwise unrecognizable cast did a fair enough job. The budget for special effects pretty much overshadowed everything else, I would think. The entire movie pretty much revolves around huge military warships duking it out with alien spacecraft (moving perhaps ungracefully through the ocean), with lots of explosions, artillery file, missile exchanges and special weapons being fired back and forth. Also, they did a rather excellent job on the aliens. They made a great deal out of painting the other planet as very earth-like, and in essence, the aliens were almost our twins, except for a slightly different origin and a slightly different environment, and slightly more advanced. Still, there's the requisite scene where an alien touches a human and there's mind-to-mind contact about the alien's homeworld. Why do we have this? Honestly, not all space-aliens are born knowing the vulcan mind-meld. Trust me, I know a few. Seems silly to toss it in here for absolutely no reason. it did nothing for the movie. Could have gone without it, quite frankly, and been better for it, but no. No.
In any case, lots of alien technology, alien-human fisticuffs, alien-human machine warfare, and no nudity, so if you're a typical fan of action movies and aliens, like me, then this is nice. But, what's up with Rihanna not doing a nude scene? I mean, she's practically naked all over the intertubes, am I right? Here she's covered up by flak vests and body armor constantly. Damn, girl! Show me some skin and let the aliens get a load of those boobies! Errr, anyway, I digress. On to Chronicle.
Chronicle has been out a while (much like Battleship, but being unemployed for so long, I don't see movies right away anymore), but I had seen the trailers for it when it first came out. It's, again, one of those blair-witch-camera type things. where the camera is almost a character in the story, and we see things through it's eye. I HATE these things. I don't care how well they are done, I don't care how much money they save, I don't care how they might up the suspense, i want to SEE what's going on. I don't want to see the view through a window being filmed by a neighbor with a telescopic lens, I want full frontal close-ups by a film crew who ripped out the wall of the room so they could put more cameras in to film EVERYTHING. People usually pay money to see a movie, so why deny them the right to actually SEE the movie? Why play camera tricks so that what they actually see is a movie of the movie, and a poor one at that, since the camera being a part of the action only ends up making us see very little of the actual action? It's like shooting a porn movie and showing snapshots of the lead actress going into a cheap motel to shoot the movie, watching the curtains blowing out the window of the cheap motel room while we hear sounds of sex but see nothing, and then showing the actress leaving the place with a frown of disappointment on her face. We feel your disappointment, ma'am. We do. Just show us what happens already.
Chronicle itself is about a few high school guys who follow a rabbit hole and end up communing with a glowy rock. I'm not sure if it's radioactive, alien in origin, or just some unexplained experiment in psychotropic crystals that got away, but it ends up awakening telekinesis in these three individuals. As you may have guessed, giving telekinesis to a bunch of high schoolers will not end well, and it doesn't. There's infighting, jealousy, rage, and general crankiness. Without even the standard boob fare, like Zapped! Such a disappointment.
So i'm not really sure why a bunch of drunken high schoolers would go spelunking down into a dark cave in the middle of the night, or how they actually managed to make it out alive without falling and killing themselves, or why only telekinesis was unleashed, but there you have it. Three entirely different teenage boys get super-powered telekinetic abilities, and there's no female nudity. I'm not really sure if they're gay, or I'm a pervert, but telekinesis could have SO many other uses than flying about in the sky playing football. Seriously? You can pull the legs off a spider but you STILL can't get into a woman's panties? Dude, seriously. Doing it wrong. Think "Modern Problems" with Chevy Chase.
I wasn't really fond of this movie. It starts out slow, and with the camera-being-a-character type of film process, it is immediately annoying. I had tried to watch it days before, but I had turned it off in annoyance. If you can get past that, past the slow build, past the fact that three supposedly straight high school boys never rip a woman's dress off with their powers, and past the typically emo personality the main character and his camera have going for them, well, the ending is okay. Rage-fueled telekinesis is, after all, what gave the movie Carrie it's lasting appeal, and this is basically what you might expect when an unstable individual's thoughts are given power.
To be honest, I'm not really sure who would enjoy this movie. There wasn't a lot of action, no nudity, no aliens, few explosions, very little fighting and no comedy, so.... yea. If you want to watch a movie where none of that happens, watch this one? lol
That's all I got for now. Nothing exciting on the horizon yet.
So, three reviews. I would have spaced them out a bit more, as I seem to be ending up posting about once or twice a month at best lately, but I just saw Battleship and Chronicle this weekend, and caught the last of House of Cards (a Netflix miniseries). So, you guys are stuck with one big tripartite review.
Let's take House of Cards first, since it's fresh in my mind. It's all about politics, basically. And not even accurate politics, as far as I know. First, let me say this, I am neither an expert in, nor do I ever really think about, politics. Other than to say, I don't care. I don't vote, because it doesn't seem to matter who gets elected, they all seem to either be corrupt or ineffective. Perhaps you see this as a nihilistic attitude, but I am simply pragmatic about it... my vote does not matter, so what's the point of wasting my time? Now let's move on.
House of Cards is a look at the inner world of one Congressman Frank Underwood, a man who supported the incumbent (fictional) president, but got screwed over when it came time to hand out the rewards for his support. Over the course of the 13-part series on Netflix, Frank tries to not only take his vengeance out on the man who wronged him, but gain more power for himself as a result. Sounds like a good revenge story, eh? We all like a good revenge story! Doesn't quite work out that way, however.
So here's what I think about it. It might seem pretty realistic except for the fact that Congressman don't write their own legislation, a process routinely shown over the course of the series. As I understand it (and admittedly, my source is the internet since, as I said, I know nothing about politics), lobbyists actually write the bills that are turned into law, and congressmen just get re-elected so they can keep taking money not only from the people but from the corporations as well. Hey, don't look at me, as far as I can tell, that's the internet's take on how congress works, and we all know they can't put stuff on the internet that isn't true, right? lol It does go into great detail about how the oil corporation keeps a lobbyist practically on Frank's front doorstep just in case they want him to do something, and shows a lot of underhanded dealings as far as that goes. In the world of House of Cards, corporations certainly are the bad guy. They apparently operate with no rules and can pretty much do whatever they want, while adhering to the ridiculously negligent laws about them dealing directly with congressmen. So by comparison, I suppose a man like Frank Underwood is a holy knight in shining white armor.
The series isn't really consistent, though. At one turn Frank is coordinating a series of back-door dealings to assure his influence, and the next moment he's rambling incoherently on live TV. They never fully explained why he can seem so brilliant one moment and so idiotic the next. I will say Frank seems like a typical congressman... more interested in advancing his own power and wealth than producing anything good out of life, and he doesn't care who he has to hurt to do it. There's one scene at the very beginning where Frank ends the life of a dog who gets hit by a car, something I took to be a merciful act, but seems more to foreshadow his absolutely cold-hearted behavior through the rest of the series. I found it hard to root for Frank, or to identify with anyone at all in the series, quite honestly. They all seem to be lying, backstabbing people, only concerned with advancing their own agendas despite whatever interpersonal bridges they have to burn. Alliances seem to form among enemies between one episode and the next, and powerful people seem to break otherwise beneficial bonds that have been working. Maybe that's politics, but it seems a god-awfully inefficient way to do things. Also, the series ends rather ineffectively, not that we can't see where things are going, but I suppose, it sets things up for next season. Given that it's been some time and I have yet to see another season of Lilyhammer (netflix's first series seems to be hanging in limbo), I don't hold out hope I'll see the end of this 13-part setup.
Overall, I would say, only watch the series if you like politics, enjoy excellent acting (excellent acting abounds here, spotlighting kevin spacey), or have a thing for Kate Mara (arguably the leader of the supporting cast on the opposition side), which, I do. She has a fine rear end unless they used a stand in, which is entirely possible, and the rest of her is not unattractive either, I must say. lol No monsters, very few boobs, lots of betrayals, backstabbing and such. Politics as usual. Moving on.
Battleship did not seem like that decent of a movie, quite honestly. When I saw the trailers for the giant robots in the water, I immediately thought "transformers clone" and nearly disregarded it completely. However, HBO advertised it heavily this week and I was bored so I took a gander at it.
Basically, we find an earth-like planet, and decide to beam a signal directly at it in hopes of contacting alien life. Much like one of the scientists involved in this endeavor, I already thought that this was a bad idea. Oh not for the obvious reasons, but two things stood out. One, if we are beaming a signal directly at an alien planet, what are we hitting when it gets there? The signal would have to be pretty powerful to go that far, so, are we talking, some poor alien shleb on Earth "2" is sitting there reading his morning paper when an alien laser beam fries him and all that's left is his slippers? I would take that as an attack, quite frankly, not an attempt to communicate. Also, we are never told what actually is the content of the message or signal we are sending. Could be reruns of reality TV, in which case, I'm not surprised they sent military warships in response. Which, is what happens, while a bunch of navy vessels are undergoing battle-exercises in the ocean around Hawaii, alien ships drop into the ocean there, erect a forcefield, and try to re-establish contact with their homeworld. They don't seem to attack civilians, as far as I can tell, which would seem to be a direct invitation to begin some sort of dialog to me, but what sort of movie would that be? Uninteresting! Blast the shit out of the friendly buggers. Much more fun that way.
I don't think I've been this pleased by an alien-invasion movie since Independence Day, and while it didn't have the star-power, acting talent or overall celebratory feel of that movie, it did remind me of it quite a bit. Liam Neeson was the only actor I can really think of offhand that was a big name in that movie, other than Rihanna (her first acting debut? maybe), but the otherwise unrecognizable cast did a fair enough job. The budget for special effects pretty much overshadowed everything else, I would think. The entire movie pretty much revolves around huge military warships duking it out with alien spacecraft (moving perhaps ungracefully through the ocean), with lots of explosions, artillery file, missile exchanges and special weapons being fired back and forth. Also, they did a rather excellent job on the aliens. They made a great deal out of painting the other planet as very earth-like, and in essence, the aliens were almost our twins, except for a slightly different origin and a slightly different environment, and slightly more advanced. Still, there's the requisite scene where an alien touches a human and there's mind-to-mind contact about the alien's homeworld. Why do we have this? Honestly, not all space-aliens are born knowing the vulcan mind-meld. Trust me, I know a few. Seems silly to toss it in here for absolutely no reason. it did nothing for the movie. Could have gone without it, quite frankly, and been better for it, but no. No.
In any case, lots of alien technology, alien-human fisticuffs, alien-human machine warfare, and no nudity, so if you're a typical fan of action movies and aliens, like me, then this is nice. But, what's up with Rihanna not doing a nude scene? I mean, she's practically naked all over the intertubes, am I right? Here she's covered up by flak vests and body armor constantly. Damn, girl! Show me some skin and let the aliens get a load of those boobies! Errr, anyway, I digress. On to Chronicle.
Chronicle has been out a while (much like Battleship, but being unemployed for so long, I don't see movies right away anymore), but I had seen the trailers for it when it first came out. It's, again, one of those blair-witch-camera type things. where the camera is almost a character in the story, and we see things through it's eye. I HATE these things. I don't care how well they are done, I don't care how much money they save, I don't care how they might up the suspense, i want to SEE what's going on. I don't want to see the view through a window being filmed by a neighbor with a telescopic lens, I want full frontal close-ups by a film crew who ripped out the wall of the room so they could put more cameras in to film EVERYTHING. People usually pay money to see a movie, so why deny them the right to actually SEE the movie? Why play camera tricks so that what they actually see is a movie of the movie, and a poor one at that, since the camera being a part of the action only ends up making us see very little of the actual action? It's like shooting a porn movie and showing snapshots of the lead actress going into a cheap motel to shoot the movie, watching the curtains blowing out the window of the cheap motel room while we hear sounds of sex but see nothing, and then showing the actress leaving the place with a frown of disappointment on her face. We feel your disappointment, ma'am. We do. Just show us what happens already.
Chronicle itself is about a few high school guys who follow a rabbit hole and end up communing with a glowy rock. I'm not sure if it's radioactive, alien in origin, or just some unexplained experiment in psychotropic crystals that got away, but it ends up awakening telekinesis in these three individuals. As you may have guessed, giving telekinesis to a bunch of high schoolers will not end well, and it doesn't. There's infighting, jealousy, rage, and general crankiness. Without even the standard boob fare, like Zapped! Such a disappointment.
So i'm not really sure why a bunch of drunken high schoolers would go spelunking down into a dark cave in the middle of the night, or how they actually managed to make it out alive without falling and killing themselves, or why only telekinesis was unleashed, but there you have it. Three entirely different teenage boys get super-powered telekinetic abilities, and there's no female nudity. I'm not really sure if they're gay, or I'm a pervert, but telekinesis could have SO many other uses than flying about in the sky playing football. Seriously? You can pull the legs off a spider but you STILL can't get into a woman's panties? Dude, seriously. Doing it wrong. Think "Modern Problems" with Chevy Chase.
I wasn't really fond of this movie. It starts out slow, and with the camera-being-a-character type of film process, it is immediately annoying. I had tried to watch it days before, but I had turned it off in annoyance. If you can get past that, past the slow build, past the fact that three supposedly straight high school boys never rip a woman's dress off with their powers, and past the typically emo personality the main character and his camera have going for them, well, the ending is okay. Rage-fueled telekinesis is, after all, what gave the movie Carrie it's lasting appeal, and this is basically what you might expect when an unstable individual's thoughts are given power.
To be honest, I'm not really sure who would enjoy this movie. There wasn't a lot of action, no nudity, no aliens, few explosions, very little fighting and no comedy, so.... yea. If you want to watch a movie where none of that happens, watch this one? lol
That's all I got for now. Nothing exciting on the horizon yet.
Thursday, January 24, 2013
Review - Red Lights
Okay, so I'm browsing netflix and I see this new movie.
Red Lights. Robert DeNiro, Sigourney Weaver. Yea, I wen't whoa, I didn't hear about this one, i wonder why not? Well, turns out there's decent reason.
So Sigourney Weaver stars as this scientific investigator who spends most of her time debunking your average, run of the mill psychic. Basically exposing them as the scam artists they are. Now, if you are one of those people who believe in psychics, and you are still reading my blog, well, you know I think they are all 100% frauds. An opinion shared by Ms Weaver's character and her lab assistant. The term "Red Lights" refers to things that would seem out of place, or incongruous, that these two would use to foil a psychic's otherwise perfectly planned evening. For instance, a guy going through a crowd, surreptitiously overhearing conversation on why each of the people is there to see the psychic who's on stage that night, gleaning information that the psychic can use to appear to be, well, "psychic." As we've seen from other movies, most obviously Steve Martin as a faith healer in that one movie.... that I can't remember the name of.... most of them have someone talking to them through a radio gizmo by which they can manage the people who come to see the show. In any case, Ms Weaver and her assistant are short on cash, the result of a lack of grant funding for their research. I don't think it was ever really explained what their research was, because in the midst of this, a formerly retired psychic comes out of retirement after 30 years to do a few more shows. Apparently, he needed more money. Makes sense. The suddenly un-retired psychic, Robert DeNiro, becomes basically the whole focus of the movie after this.
Despite the big names, there was a decidedly incoherent plot through all this. Now here's where I rip apart the movie, so if you want to actually watch this, skip past this part of my blog.
First off, Sigourney Weaver's character dies halfway through the film. I'm not sure if they ran out of money to pay her acting fees or that was part of the plot but anyone hoping for a climactic showdown between these two acting talents is going to be sorely disappointed. I know I was. Sigourney's acting skills, which never seemed to depend on her youth (as in the alien films) are in evidence here, but unfortunately she's cut from the cast about halfway through. There's not even an explanation of her death, for some strange reason, which left me wondering what exactly was going on in the middle of the movie. Not because it was part of the story, and I should have been wondering what was going on, but because it happened so suddenly and without reason that a lack of explanation seemed ludicrous. Secondly, a huge point is made of proving DeNiro's character is a fake psychic, which could have been amply done by the surviving lab assistant. Note that his "secret technique," the fact that he plays a blind man and actually isn't, was the first thing I thought of when i saw him, as it seemed the absolute most obvious thing that he could use to appear psychic and not be, and this was alluded to throughout the movie. So the "big secret ending" was so anticlimactic as to be moot at that point. Also, they let the lab assistant's assistant do it, in an almost completely unrelated scene, wherein one character is actually trying to say something, and he's never actually allowed to say it, which, I found totally annoying. Then, to top all that mess off, they reveal that the lab assistant was only able to denounce DeNiro's fake psychicness is because the lab assistant himself is a psychic. Which, just really confused me as to the point of it. I suppose every movie needs a twist, but that was probably not the right one to throw in there. lol Another thing they did was have sigourney's son, who is apparently in a coma, not only survive her death, but has his life support turned off by the supposedly now "real" psychic. Which confuses me for two reasons, one, why have a totally inert character get his life support shut off at the end of the movie to prove a point (what point exactly?) and two, who the HELL is paying for his hospital care when sigourney weaver's funding was so lacking, and she died halfway through the movie anyway? Wouldn't they have just pulled the plug when the money ran out? There wasn't even any good sex or nudity, despite the lab assistant's lab assistant being pretty attractive. Why bother exploring that side of things when it plays no actual role in the film? Questions, questions. Usually what happens is, the big twist ending makes scenes in the movie, that were otherwise unexplainable, make sense. In this movie, the twist made otherwise explainable scenes suddenly senseless in the context of what we now know, which, just served to confuse me.
End spoilers. All in all, watch if you are a fan of DeNiro, as he and sigourney Weaver are both as charismatic as ever, even if they aren't acting their hearts out for this film. I wouldn't watch the movie again, personally, as the ending "twists" are in parts sorely predictable and utterly pointless, and once seen, utterly forgettable.
Now what else is going on... Nothing! :-D Coasting on financial fumes, hoping to make it to a gas station so I can get my wealthiness tank filled, if you'll excuse the metaphor. We'll see what happens! Otherwise, surviving a typical western new york winter. :-) At least the snow shoveling is keeping me active. lol
Friday, January 4, 2013
Reviews - Avengers, and Blitz
Yes, I finally saw the Avengers movie.
I know, right? I'm like the last person in the universe to get around to seeing it. Pond scum on Altair-7 have probably caught it in reruns more times than I have. Hey, give me a break. I just got it for xmas. Pond scum on Altair-7 have those weird hive-mind brain-tv gizmo things that they can download avengers movies into their hive-minds with, and I can't afford that kind of thing right now. Bit short on cash.
So, Avengers, good movie. Lots of action. Aliens, monsters, superheroes, hot chicks. Or at least one hot chick. Maybe two. Can't quite recall at this point. Anyway, I've seen a few comments about this movie and they were disappointed that it was a group superhero movie, and it basically had to go into how the group got together and everything. Meh, I think they did an okay job, but I don't think Nick Fury should have got all the credit. He is basically made out to be some sort of super manipulator who is so cognizant of the minds of the avengers that he can tell which way they are going to dodge in a firefight. And the rest of the avengers are made out to be a bunch of idiots who are basically puppets on strings for Fury. Now I like Samuel L Jackson and I think he's a fine actor but I never really got that impression from reading the avengers comic books that Nick Fury was a grade-A politically minded genius as well as an experienced warrior who can hold his own against superheroes. The most I ever made of him was an experienced Spy/Warrior type who ran some government agency that was trying to safeguard humanity. He didn't seem especially bright to me? Anyway, the movie also painted Tony Stark as a bit of a selfish prick, Thor as a bit of a violent dork, and frankly seemed to make a total hero of hawkeye, who somehow manages to hold off several hundred aliens with a bow and arrow. Hawkeye always struck me as the least competent of heroes, but maybe I didn't read the right comics. I honestly don't like the actor who plays hawkeye, jeremy Renner. I don't know him personally, mind you, and maybe I am way off base, but he LOOKS like a bit of a douche. he just has that "no matter what I am playing, I AM the villian.. MWAHA HAHA HA HAAAAA!!!!" look to him. Maybe it's just me. The only person who seemed to do better than I expected was the guy who played Bruce Banner. I think he was mark ruffalo? I'm not positive. I'd look it up but I am way too lazy. He came off as being totally in control of himself, the hulk, and having a handle on the entire situation as best as could be expected under the circumstances. He did a fine job with the role, even if he looks NOTHING like the last guy who played the hulk. lol And, scarlett johansson, of course, was... well, she's always hot, and I can't really bring myself to critique her acting skills when she's throwing that goddamn gorgeous body around in front of my eyes. Yea, sorry it's been a while. lol Anyway, they are making Avengers 2 right now so I hope it's pretty decent as well.
Blitz, I just saw with Jason Statham. Good buddy cop movie! The gay cop is a bit of a cliche with his nice house and fancy coffee and what all, but I like his character anyway. They didn't make too much of jason Statham's fighting skills, he's basically just playing a badass cop, and they work them in nicely with the action, drama and plot. All of which seemed to be excellent. The bad guy is even revolting! I'd have beat his ass myself, just for being such a good actor that he made me hate him! lol
Time is short, but as an aside, has anyone seen the 1955 movie Tarantula? It's one of Clint Eastwood's first movie roles, he just plays a bit part at the end. Anyway, there's this doctor running around trying to figure out what's killing people. it ends up being a giant tarantula. But they find these weird pools of white goo lying around where all these people are dying. So the doc sniffs it, pokes his finger into it, licks it... and he's all like "blech, that tastes bad" no shit, because it turns out it's SPIDER VENOM. From a giant goddamn tarantula. Now, I know tarantulas don't have the strongest venom in the arachnid kingdom, but a giant tarantula exuding pools of pure venom, and this guy just licks some off his finger, wouldn't that be, you know, bad? unhealthy in some way, maybe? lol Eh it was a silly movie anyway.
Happy New Year everyone! Here's to hoping this one is better than the last one, at least for me! Last year wasn't that great for me, as many of you may know. lol If anyone had a great year last year and couldn't hope to top it this year, well, good on ya! Lend me some luck. And maybe a few bucks. lol
I know, right? I'm like the last person in the universe to get around to seeing it. Pond scum on Altair-7 have probably caught it in reruns more times than I have. Hey, give me a break. I just got it for xmas. Pond scum on Altair-7 have those weird hive-mind brain-tv gizmo things that they can download avengers movies into their hive-minds with, and I can't afford that kind of thing right now. Bit short on cash.
So, Avengers, good movie. Lots of action. Aliens, monsters, superheroes, hot chicks. Or at least one hot chick. Maybe two. Can't quite recall at this point. Anyway, I've seen a few comments about this movie and they were disappointed that it was a group superhero movie, and it basically had to go into how the group got together and everything. Meh, I think they did an okay job, but I don't think Nick Fury should have got all the credit. He is basically made out to be some sort of super manipulator who is so cognizant of the minds of the avengers that he can tell which way they are going to dodge in a firefight. And the rest of the avengers are made out to be a bunch of idiots who are basically puppets on strings for Fury. Now I like Samuel L Jackson and I think he's a fine actor but I never really got that impression from reading the avengers comic books that Nick Fury was a grade-A politically minded genius as well as an experienced warrior who can hold his own against superheroes. The most I ever made of him was an experienced Spy/Warrior type who ran some government agency that was trying to safeguard humanity. He didn't seem especially bright to me? Anyway, the movie also painted Tony Stark as a bit of a selfish prick, Thor as a bit of a violent dork, and frankly seemed to make a total hero of hawkeye, who somehow manages to hold off several hundred aliens with a bow and arrow. Hawkeye always struck me as the least competent of heroes, but maybe I didn't read the right comics. I honestly don't like the actor who plays hawkeye, jeremy Renner. I don't know him personally, mind you, and maybe I am way off base, but he LOOKS like a bit of a douche. he just has that "no matter what I am playing, I AM the villian.. MWAHA HAHA HA HAAAAA!!!!" look to him. Maybe it's just me. The only person who seemed to do better than I expected was the guy who played Bruce Banner. I think he was mark ruffalo? I'm not positive. I'd look it up but I am way too lazy. He came off as being totally in control of himself, the hulk, and having a handle on the entire situation as best as could be expected under the circumstances. He did a fine job with the role, even if he looks NOTHING like the last guy who played the hulk. lol And, scarlett johansson, of course, was... well, she's always hot, and I can't really bring myself to critique her acting skills when she's throwing that goddamn gorgeous body around in front of my eyes. Yea, sorry it's been a while. lol Anyway, they are making Avengers 2 right now so I hope it's pretty decent as well.
Blitz, I just saw with Jason Statham. Good buddy cop movie! The gay cop is a bit of a cliche with his nice house and fancy coffee and what all, but I like his character anyway. They didn't make too much of jason Statham's fighting skills, he's basically just playing a badass cop, and they work them in nicely with the action, drama and plot. All of which seemed to be excellent. The bad guy is even revolting! I'd have beat his ass myself, just for being such a good actor that he made me hate him! lol
Time is short, but as an aside, has anyone seen the 1955 movie Tarantula? It's one of Clint Eastwood's first movie roles, he just plays a bit part at the end. Anyway, there's this doctor running around trying to figure out what's killing people. it ends up being a giant tarantula. But they find these weird pools of white goo lying around where all these people are dying. So the doc sniffs it, pokes his finger into it, licks it... and he's all like "blech, that tastes bad" no shit, because it turns out it's SPIDER VENOM. From a giant goddamn tarantula. Now, I know tarantulas don't have the strongest venom in the arachnid kingdom, but a giant tarantula exuding pools of pure venom, and this guy just licks some off his finger, wouldn't that be, you know, bad? unhealthy in some way, maybe? lol Eh it was a silly movie anyway.
Happy New Year everyone! Here's to hoping this one is better than the last one, at least for me! Last year wasn't that great for me, as many of you may know. lol If anyone had a great year last year and couldn't hope to top it this year, well, good on ya! Lend me some luck. And maybe a few bucks. lol
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