#5 - What We Become (2015)

One of the best things about Hollywood no longer being the only producer of movies, is that other cultures are finally getting into the horror movie genre.  Asian horror is a huge thing now, but there's other countries getting into it, India and I think I even saw a Spanish horror movie a few years back.  Scandinavian horror films are out there, and they're coming to get you, Barbara!  I guess it makes sense in a region where it snows like 10 months out of the year.  What else have they got to do but watch movies and drink, right?  No wonder they're the happiest places on Earth.

What We Become (2015) is an intertwined tale of several families living in a scandinavian community of what look like apartment houses or something, at the end of a good summer.  The only problem is, people are starting to become ill.  Kids are throwing up at block parties, old people are dying (uh, well, earlier than usual, I guess), and the authorities are starting to get worried.  What could the mysterious illness be, and who's infected?

I apologize for my ignorance in not knowing what country actually made this movie.  It's on Netflix if you have some idea of what the language is, but I had subtitles on, and I wasn't paying attention to the words the actors and actresses were speaking.  If I had paid more attention to the dialogue, I might have been able to figure out which language it was, but the best I can figure, it's Norwegian, or Swedish, or maybe Finnish.  Yeah, that probably covers all the ones I can think of.  :-)  The acting and effects seemed pretty decent, and the plot made a basic sort of sense, given that the characters involved really didn't have much idea of what was going on.  I don't know any of the actors because they were all foreign, but they are probably veteran actors from their home country.

Anyway, it starts out a little slow and isn't much on action, but it develops the characters to some extent, and even though it felt like I had only known some of the people such a short time, I could at least identify with what they were going through.  I even felt bad for the poor woman who was only on screen for like 2 minutes, who had lost her husband and had two kids at home to feed.  She was just a glorified extra, but the poor woman was doing her best, and the movie makes you feel that.

Worth a watch, and if there's a sequel, that would even be worth a watch too.  I don't think I'd need to watch it again, because there really wasn't anything new or unusual here.  I don't want to give away any spoilers, and the minute you see the illness breaking out, you'll know what it is.  You've probably already guessed it, just from my post, but don't let that stop you from watching the movie.  What We Become is leaving Netflix in 5 days, so if you want to check it out, better hurry!

That's all for tonight!  Enjoy your weekend, and enjoy the last days of Oktoberfest!  :-D

#3 + #4, Stephanie, Hold the Dark

Okay, missed a day already!  Just going to be one of those months, I guess.  Before I forget, both of tonight's horror movie choices are available on Netflix.  I'm feeling crappy and falling behind so I'm just going to get right to the (admittedly short) reviews.

Stepahnie (2017) is about a little girl living alone in what appears to be her house.  There's something else living in Stephanie's house, or maybe it lives in the woods, and just comes to visit.  Whatever it is, it's alternately playful and creepy, like that one uncle your family never talks about.  Stephanie is doing her best just to make it on her own, and it seems apparent that something happened to her mother, father and brother, who seem to be out of the picture.  Then, all hell breaks loose!

Funny how often that seems to happen, isn't it?  Anyways, Shree Crooks plays Stephanie, and she seems to be having a hard time carrying the movie through the first third or half of it, because though the movie is actually pretty short, the first part of it seems to drag.  Then things pick up, and I won't tell you what happens because it's actually not a bad monster movie.  Kind of expected, really, but hey, it's a different story than I've seen before so I'm going to give it the benefit of the doubt.  Anna Torv plays Stephanie's mother.  Effects were decent enough.  Worth watching a first time, and I might even watch it again at some point, and look for clues to see if I could have figured what was coming, now that I've seen the end.

Hold The Dark (2018) is a story about a little boy who goes missing one morning, apparently eaten by wolves.  The boy's grieving mother writes to a writer / wolf expert to get him to come hunt the wolf who killed her boy, and she realizes when he shows up that he actually wrote that book a while back, because he's older now.  Apparently, he only showed up because his estranged daughter lives in the area, and he was hoping to drop by and see her at some point, after taking care of the mother's little wolf problem.  Looks like it's old man vs a pack of killer wolves!

This is an original Netflix production, and boy, does it show!  Great settings and locations, awesome productions, veteran famous actors (some guy from True Blood, and some guy from WestWorld), and the worst writing and continuity I've ever seen.  Seriously, Netflix, wtf is up with you guys?  Is this why you took off the user reviews, so you could foist crap off on the viewing public that was written by your 4-year-old grandkids using crayons?  Let me just see if I can figure out what's going with this crapfrest of a movie.  At first, the trailer makes you thik the writer is going to go off into the wilderness and hunt down some killer wolves, like Liam Neeson in The Grey, or maybe Val Kilmer in Ghost and the Darkness.  I was thinking maybe there was something about the wolves that might even be supernatural, which would have been awesome!  Unfortunately, none of those things happened.

About 5 minutes after the writer guy arrives at the mother's cabin in rural Alaska, you realize things are rapidly going downhill, and they don't stop til they've hit rock bottom.  I don't know wtf was supposed to be going on in the writer's mind, but none of this makes a lick of sense.  It's like Netflix pasted together a trailer, and then did everything they could to fix it so nothing that you could infer from the trailer actually happened in the movie.  If you're thinking that made for a  great twist ending, because I didn't see it coming, then you'd be half-right.  It made for a ridiculously crappy ending, that made absolutely no sense.  And no, I'm not mad because the movie "fooled me," because I didn't see what was coming in Stephanie, either, and I was pleasantly surprised by that movie, so I don't mind being fooled for a good cause, like, oh, I don't know, maybe a half-way decent horror flick?  Which, Hold the Dark may not even count as a horror flick, and that's not a good sign.

This one just seemed stupidly ridiculous, like it was trying to explain how crazy those Native Alaskan-Americans were, and maybe they are, but I've talked to several people from Alaska (admittedly, over the internet) and they've never been anywhere near that batshit crazy.  A very unsatisfying and confusing ending, and it wasn't just the end, either.  Most of the cast didn't seem to do anything that made any kind of sense, and I'm not even talking about the usual horror movie tropes like running towards scary noises by themselves in the dark, so they could get picked off by the killer.  Nope, this whole movie just seemed dumb.  Well, what do I know, right?  Right.  Still a stupid movie, and I felt kind of disappointed and let down by the whole thing.  Way to go, netflix.  I would not watch it again.

That's all for tonight!  All caught up, hopefully I won't slip behind again, but it does happen.  Life gets busy, as we are all well aware.  Hope everyone is enjoying the October Horror Movie Review-A-Thon so far, and getting out to see the fall colors, or whatever it is you normally do in October.  :-)

#2 - Insidious, The Last Key (2018)

I'm replacing the obligatory introductory post full of nonesene with some useful information for a change.  Useful if you're a horror movie fan, anyways.  Halloween is being, uh, rebooted, I guess?  Jamie Lee Curtis returns as Laurie Strode, supposedly 40 years after the original Halloween movie.  They've decided to just ignore Halloween 2-6, I guess?  Or maybe 3 to 6.  I could see ignoring 3, I mean, that one wasn't part of the Michael Myers story line.  Anyways, hey, new Halloween movie coming out in theaters sometime this month!  I know, you're saying "They are just corrupting my childhood in search of more money."  Yeah, probably.  :-)

Insidious: The Last Key (2018) is a tale about Elise Rainier, a psychic investigator, investigating a haunting she began to experience early in her traumatic childhood.  Apparently there's a new tenant living in her old childhood home that's experiencing a haunting, and it sounds so eerily familiar to Elise that she just has to help the poor guy out.  At first, she intends leaving her duo of assistants home, lest she put them in mortal danger, but they ignore her wishes and decide to come along anyways.  Time for the scooby gang to solve another mystery in the mystery machine!

So, there's a lot of flashbacks in this movie, and in fact, I think the whole movie is actually one big flashback, since I think Elise actually died in one of he previous movies?  I'm not even sure if she's alive or dead at this point in this insidious timeline, so I guess this movie has flashbacks within flashbacks.  I'm so confused, but I think the movie basically makes sense.  Maybe?  I tried not to think about it too much, honestly.

Lin Shaye reprises her role as Elise Rainier, and she's got her psychic investigation team Tucker and Specs back with her this time.  Bruce Davison takes a turn playing Elise's estranged younger brother, and there's a couple new faces in the mix this time around.  The acting and special efects were decent, and there were the usual jump scares and creepy-looking spirits in the Other Place, or the Beyond, or Hell, or where-ever the hell Insidious calls the place where people go after they die.  Meh, these types of haunted spirit things don't even seem to stick with me anymore, for some reason.  Maybe I've seen too many horror movies?  Could be!  Would I watch it again?  No, probably not, but for fans of the Insidious series, I suppose it's worth a watch.  Catch it on Cinemax if you want to see it.

Two down, twenty nine reviews to go!  Woohooo!  Damn, I love horror movies.  :-D

OHMRAT Begins with The Witch (2015)

It's that time of year again, boys and girls!  No, not time to change your underwear, it's October Horror Movie Review-A-Thon!  Yay!  My favorite time of year!  Next to, you know, Christmas, and going to the beach in summer, and my birthday and, well, look let's just call it my favorite time of year, okay?  Okay.  Horror movies all month long!  Yay!  And yes, technically I could watch Horror movies all year long, but then where would I squeeze in Sci-Fi and Superhero movies?  Exactly.

The Witch (2015) is not exactly a movie about a Witch, but about a family who is socially ostracized from their community and has to make their way to the edge of the woods to eke out a living.  There's the mom and dad, and a bunch of youngins, and then one day the youngest of the youngins just sort of vanishes, without hide nor hair to tell them where it's gone.  This does not set the dad off on an action-adventure where he hunts down the Witch and lops her head off, as you might expect, but focuses instead on the trials and tribulations that follow the family even after such a devastating event.  And then, all Hell breaks loose!  :-D

Yay, I got to say it!  On the first day, on my first review!  Yeehawww!  I love it when a plan comes together.  Anya Taylor-Joy plays Thomasin, the teen girl who basically plays the protagonist in this movie, and there's a bunch of other people I don't recognize in the other roles.  You might recognize Anya Taylor-Joy from her roles in Morgan (as Morgan) and from Split as Casey Cooke (one of Split's captives), though I can't say as I did.  You might also recognize the mom, Katherine, who played Lysa Arryn in Game of Thrones (I didn't recognize her, either).  The acting was decent, the special effects minimal and effective, and the overall setting was pretty damned excellent.  The movie had atmosphere, and the plot was coherent, and as far as I can tell, it doesn't contradict itself.  A little confusing?  Sometimes, but Thomasin basically explains the whole damned thing, herself, so just watch the movie and let her tell it like it is.  It's on Netflix if you want to catch it.  I did like this movie.  There was some nudity, and some goats, and what seemed like a lot of useless drama, but it all makes sense in the end.  Would definitely watch again.  great for the first day of Horror month.

A quick review of the premieres I have seen so far.  Magnum PI (CBS, monday nights) isn't bad, and I'm surprised Tom Selleck didn't make a cameo or something.  Manifest (monday nights, NBC) sucks.  FBI (tuesday nights, CBS) doesn't look too bad, either.  At the very least, the explosions are fun to watch.  Gifted was back on Tuesday nights on FOX, I'm watching that again, too.  I also checked out Single parents, Murphy Brown (I never watched it during it's original run, and from the looks of it, I didn't miss anything), and Cool Kids.  Cool Kids has Martin Mull, who I normally enjoy watching, and Vickie Lawrence, but I don't know, half-hour shows are hard to get into.  Especially half-hour shows about old folks in an old folks home.  I guess it could be funny?  Meh.  Single parents has that big guy from Everybody Loves Raymond, but other than that, I'm not seeing anything good about any of those shows.  I'll update you guys as I see new shows.

That's all for tonight.  Catch you tomorrow for another review, if everything goes according to plan, and all Hell doesn't break loose.  Heh.  I got to say it twice!  :-)

Black Panther (2018)

You know, I heard this movie was supposed to be awesome, but I guess the sheer speed that Netflix got ahold of it should have been a dead giveaway.  I've been reviewing a lot of bad movies lately, so maybe I'm just looking for flaws nowadays, but... Ah, maybe I should just get to the review, huh?  Yeah.  Sounds like a plan.

Black Panther (2018) is about Prince T'Challa, who becomes a king upon the death of his father.  Unfortunately, there are several challengers he must overcome before he can ascend to the throne.  Then there's the usual kingly problems that one must deal with when one runs a country!  Like crazy cousins coming along to steal your throne, and, well, let's be honest here, no family is perfect, amirite?  Yeah.  I usually am.

Look, this is a Marvel Supehero movie, so let's cut to the chase.  Requisite props to the CGI action and special effects departments.  The CGI is getting better and better.  In 10 or 20 years, it might even pass for perfect realism.  I disliked the end fight, just because of the setting and scenery.  It seemed too rushed, somehow, too technical.  For once, the movie didn't seem to contradict itself too much, which, I can't stress enough, really bugs the crap out of me.  But you guys know that.  :-D  Spoilers to follow, so, maybe if you want to watch this thing on netflix for yourself, don't read on.  I don't give away anything huge, I don't think?  Meh.

So here's my rub with this movie.  There's not enough heart, and no soul to it.  I remember reading the Black Panther comic books as a kid, and one of the major facets of the character was the spiritual side of things.  I don't recall how the comics handled T'Challa's origins, but I think it was more mystical than the goop from a purple flower, and spending like 30 seconds unconscious and talking to your dead dad.  I don't know, maybe it was the fact that he kept drinking the juice to make his powers go away and then getting them back and then giving them away, I don't know, it just seemed like, any old dork could have pulled it off, once they had the potion.  T'Challa was supposed to be king because he was the best warrior, and then, he gets his ass kicked by what, the second guy who comes to challnge him?  So, he's got a 50/50 success rate.  Better than a local weather man, I guess?  Not very inspirational.

I mean, what makes T'Challa special?  Purple flower juice?  His 50/50 success rate in physical combat?  That he was a prince before he got his ass kicked?  That he can fit into a Vibranium catsuit?  Look, every superhero has something that makes him special.  For instance, Iron Man is a genius even without his armor.  Iron Man MADE the armor, so in essence, it's an extension of his genius.  The Hulk has a really bad temper, and his research into radiation-induced regeneration is what turned him into the Hulk in the first place.  Spider-Man was bitten by a radioactive spider, but it was Peter Parker's sense of responsibility that made him go from being a costumed wrestler for money, into a crimefighter.  All of these heroes have something unique, something specific, that's basically as much a superpower as what makes them capable of fighting supervillains.  I don't see anything special or unique about T'challa.  Maybe I missed it, or it ended up on the cutting room floor.

I think in the comics, there was a bit more.  Didn't he lose his powers at some point, and have to go on some mystical journey into the realm of panther gods or something, in order to get them back?  Even that would have been better than "Hey, here I saved you a flower, now go fight the bad guy.  Again.  And win this time!"  I don't know, seems kind of lame.  At least with the blessing of the "panther gods," that would have made him special.  Shit, fighting a flower-enhanced super-soldier without his powers, maybe with just the vibranium catsuit, even that would have been an accomplishment.  Something, anything to give the movie a little heart.  Instead, we get a fight on a magnetic train track, that is just such a CGI letdown.  When his little sister told him to snap out of it during the initial combat, I was hoping that the potion that turned him back to normal was actually posioned.  That would have explained why he got his ass kicked so bad, and then we could have had some drama around how he'd got poisoned the first time, and was back to kick some ass.  But, no.  None of those things happened.

I remember getting like one of those electric piano keyboard things for Xmas once.  It played Greensleeves or whatever it's called, which is basically an Xmas song, or at least, Xmas is the only time I ever heard it.  I know, you're asking why I'm talking about this now, but bear with me, I'll get to the point in a moment.  So this thing played greensleeves, or whatever, and you could try and play it back.  If you got it wrong, this thing would beep you to tell you that you screwed it up.  So, my goal was to play it back, not only without screwing it up, but without the machine helping me to know that I got it wrong.  I wanted to know the song so well that I could hear myself screwing up, and know I had got it wrong.  So I practiced for several weeks, in fact, I think it took me most of January, the entire month after Xmas, to nail it.  Finally, after weeks of practice, I replayed greensleeves perfectly, without the machine helping me at all.  I'd done it.  There was a sense of pride, I'd achieved something I set out to do, but what had I really done?  I'd reproduced something as exactly as I had heard it in the first place.  I hadn't created anything new.  I hadn't played the tune out of a sense of beauty, revelling in the pretty music.  I'd copied something, like a computer would copy a file.  Could I do it again?  What was the point?  I'd done it in the first place.  It was a technical victory, but not one that I wanted to replicate.  I set the electric piano thing aside, and I never touched it again.

It's the same thing with Black Panther.  Sure, the CGI works, mostly.  There's no continuity errors, for the most part.  It's not funny, it's not inspriational, I didn't feel the urge to cry when T'Challa won back his throne.  This was a technical victory.  I don't need to see the movie again.  It was nice the first time, I suppose, but why watch T'challa swallow a purple flower again?  It wasn't funny enough to enjoy for the humor, or emotionally impacting enough to watch the ending again.  So, I guess watch it once to see what happens, so people aren't looking at you like "Did you see Black Panther yet?  No?  Why not?"  But otherwise, I don't really see any reason to revisit it.  Maybe things will be better with Avengers: Infinity war, but from the sounds of it, it won't be.  I think Marvel's finally jumped the shark.

In other news, I've been watching some of the new season of Iron Fist, also on netflix.  I heard this season was better, but I'm like 4 episodes in and still the same old shite.  Still that same old whiny Danny Rand.  Spends 15 years trying to learn to control his emotions, to meditate, to be the calm center in a storm of mystical energies, and what is he really?  Big old ball of emotions.  It's like watching Jolene Blalock be an emotional Vulcan all over again (Star Trek: Enterprise reference, for those who were alive 20 years ago).  Even Davos is the same way, which I don't get.  Meh.  I don't know.  When do humans, as a species, finally learn something?  When do we grow, and gain some wisdom?  Does it ever happen?  Even in stories?  Or are we all just too wrapped up in ourselves to see the bigger picture?  What the fuck am I even talking about?  I don't know!  I was hoping you did.

That's all for tonight.  Lots of fall premieres coming up.  I'll get back to you guys when I see some of them.  Enjoy...  Oktoberfest?  The Fall equinox?  Sure, why not!  :-D

The Innocents (2018), Ghoul (2018)

So I read this article on the internet the other day about how Netflix doesn't want us to use "binge-watch" anymore.  I'm not really sure why they have an issue with it, or why they think they have any right to control our use of the English language.  I mean, they're a service that offers me things to watch on the internet.  Why do they think having lots of money entitles them to control how I speak?  The writer of the article offered to use "gorge" instead, but that's just dumb.  Why cave in to pressure from someone you're paying to stream movies to you?

So, I binge-watched The Innocents (2018) on Netflix, if you can call watching 8 episodes in 6 days "Binge-watching."  The Innocents is about a couple high-school kids who run away together in the name of true love and find out one of them has the power to "shift," or basically take on the form of a person they touch (the way the description reads, it sounds like they both realize they have powers, but that's not what happens).  Of course their parents try to track them down, as well as some creepy Norwegian guys, but why they want the girl with the power to shift is unclear.

I was talking with a buddy of mine about how low quality some of the movies we watch on TV has been lately, and he commented how great Netflix's productions are.  I had to disagree with him, at least on this one, because Netflix really dropped the ball.  Sure, the acting and production values were fine, but this thing is 8 hours of crap.  Nothing happens til the third hour in, and then you find out the girl can shift.  Then, nothing else happens for like 4 episodes.  Then there's the finale, in which one action scene happens.  There's no special effects in this series, and I don't mean minimal special effects for a supposed movie about mutants or people with powers, I mean, zero special effects.  All the "shifting" is done by actors and actresses switching places and pretending to be someone else.  It's like Netflix spent all the budget on the acting talent (and I'm not even sure if I've seen any of these people before), and Norwegian scenery, and zero on the writing and special effects.  There's not even any nudity that I can recall, to make up for the lack of plot, action and effects.

The plot just falls apart when you try and think about it, so it's best not to do that.  Maybe some minor spoilers in here, but so many questions.  Why does Steinar agree to help the Doctor without any pay?  Where does he get the money to pay his buddy?  Why does his buddy even agree to go with him, when he sounds like Steinar's been bullying this guy for half his life?  Why is the Doctor having Steinar follow June when he doesn't even know what's happening with Runa until several episodes in?  Why is Steinar so convinced of the Doctor's mission that he's willing to give up everything to help?  Why does it take the police department 7 episodes to put a trace on a cell phone?  I'm not even going to mention how god-awful the ending is, because it totally sucks.  Ugh.  This thing is giving me a headache, just thinking about it.

I would not watch the Innocents again, mainly because it's mostly 8 hours of sheer boredom, and none of the characters seemed to do a single thing that was intelligent or humane.  I'm not watching a second season.  They could have cut out about half the episodes, and the thing would still have been 4 hours of boredom.  If they had made it into a movie, it might have been worth a watch, like one of those old-school monster movies where they didn't have special effects, and the whole thing had to be carried on the basis of the acting and plot.  But then, the plot doesn't work here, so it still would have fallen apart.  What a waste of my 8 hours.  I think Netflix should give us a free month whenever they advertise their crap productions and we waste our time watching it.  I wonder what 8 hours of my time is worth?  Netflix took out all the customer reviews, so you can't even comment on their site about how awful some of their garbage is.  Typical.

Ghoul (2018) turned out to be much different.  It's about a political prisoner being captured and tortured in a secure facility in, what I think, is a near-future version of India.  Honestly, the near-future part wasn't even necessary, because there's really no technological advances that needed to be explained, just a shift in politics that forms the backdrop for the movie.  I don't want to give away what happens, because it is definitely worth a watch.

The first hour of Ghoul is, admittedly, a bit of a slog.  I don't go in for ideological-political bullshit, because at the end of the day, it means absolutely nothing.  I turned off Ghoul about halfway through the first episode, about to label it as utter garbage, and move on with my life.  I am glad I had some free time to devote to it later on, because it gets better.  The ideo-political crap forms the backdrop for the entire plot of this thing, and the supernatural stuff starts to show up at the end of the first hour.  Then, the next two episodes are where all hell breaks loose, and you guys know how much I love it when that happens!  :-D  I watched all three hours of Ghoul the first night, and that was definitely binge-watching.  Or, I suppose you could just call it a long movie.

I would totally watch Ghoul again, and if there's a sequel or season 2, I am going to watch that.  Special effects are good, and while I don't know any of the actors in this thing either, there's action and special effects to keep me distracted from any bad acting that may or may not have occurred.  No nudity, and I am surprised to say, this one doesn't even need it.  If you can make it through that first hour (and it was a very difficult thing), then the other 2/3rds of it is quite good.  Even the ending is pretty awesome, and that's so rare to find, nowadays.

Okay, that's all for this month!  I'll catch you guys in September, when I start warming up for OHMRAT (my October Horror Movie Review-A-Thon), by reviewing as much as I possibly can on TV.  With any luck, there might even be some new fall series I can check out for you guys.  Until then, stay safe, and don't punch a bear in the face unless you really mean it.

The Last Sharknado: It's About Time (2018)

Yep.  It's all right there in the title.  Five years after the first Sharknado (which I thought was just a goofy one-off romp spoofing the whole "everything's a killer-tornado" series of syfy movies), the supposedly-last Sharknado movie is on Syfy, RIGHT NOW.  Yes, this is a live, as-I-watch-it-I-review-it, Review.  This review is going to be very stream-of-consciousness.  Spoilers might follow, because I'm trying to watch a movie and review it at the same time, so, hey!  You've been warned.

Okay, in the first 20 minutes we've gone from the dinosaur era to Camelot, but now we have a commercial break, so let's review!  Just the first few things that pop out, (1) I could be wrong, but I don't think apples were around in the dinosaur periods, and (2) even if they were, Pterodactyls didn't eat apples.  Just sayin.  Also, man, I know it's been five years since the first one, but everyone looks so much older except the chick who was a bartender in the first movie (getting her ass grabbed by John Heard, who lent the first movie a touch of class... by... grabbing the barmaid's ass...?  yeah, okay, I meant, his acting talent).  Neil Degrasse Tyson is Merlin, that's cute.  I'm not even going to question the fire-breathing sharks.  Of course there's fire-breathing sharks, in the Sharknado.  And Finn's pulled Excalibar from the stone, because of course he has.

And now they're in the Revolutionary War.  It's Benjamin Franklin.  What the fuck is Benjamin Franklin doing leading the troops?  Oh, he's not.  Well, that's fairly accurate, I suppose.  Oh God, Finn's giving a speech.  As he says "There's no time to stop and think about the madness of it all."  Yet, he's got time to give a speech.  Yep.  He says he's got to fire the cannons all at once, and by all at once, he apparently means, one at a time, while reloading the other ones...  Well, hey, that worked!  Shocker!  And there's fireworks?  Where did they come from?  37 minutes in, and we're at another commercial.  I hope you folks appreciate the torture I am putting myself though, here.  It's not just the movie.  I hate commercials, too.

And during the commercials break, I looked up Nova, who is actually Cassie Scerbo, who's a cute 28-year-old Actress.  Ah, John Heard, no wonder you grabbed her ass, you old deceased letch.  Yes, I know, the script called for it.  Ever the lucky professional.  ;-)  RIP.  Moving on.

And we're back in the old west!  Let me guess, Billy the Kid?  Yes!  Nailed it.  :-D  I love being right.  Who the fuck is Sheriff Ron?  I hate time-travel movies.  So many paradoxes, and they're not only all the problems, but all the solutions, too.  Sigh.  Where the Hell is Dolph Lundgren?  Even he would have made this more bearable to watch.  So many Back to the Future references.

And we're.. in the 50's or 60's?  They're shooting the sharks with lasers, and it's not even Finn, just some random beach dude.  Where did they get lasers in the 60's?  Wtf?  More time-travel paradox shit, or what?  No explanation, just some guy with a laser-machine-gun, zapping sharks.  Oh, it's Finn's dad.  Okay, whatever.  And cut to another commercial.  Did I mention how much I hate commercials?  I'm not sure why they are randomly showing @this guy or @that girl at the bottom of the screen during commercials.  Must be some internet thing.  If they're doing live-tweeting, the tweets aren't showing up.  Figures.

Hey there's a flux capacitor!  Yeah.  Of course there is.  Hey, They're back in the right time!  They made it!  No, wait, they didn't.  Hah!  It's Doctor... um...  that guy from the Love Boat.  Cute.  Oh, Princess Bride references, because, why the fuck not?  Hah!

And during this commercial break, let me just say, this hopefully-last Sharknado is about the same acting quality and level of special effects we've come to expect from the Sharknado movies, which, isn't saying much.  Yeah, the bar is set pretty low at this point.  Half an hour to go!  I hope they wrap everything up in the last 30 minutes, because if it's another cliff-hanger, then that means there's another Sharknado movie coming.  Please, please, wrap everything up in the next 30 minutes!

And they've managed to travel to a post-apocalyptic future!  Oh, well done, Finn.  Something's not right?  Ya think?  Oh, April's a Borg Queen.  Yeah, because they've already ripped off the plots of every other movie in existence, why not?  Ugh.  At this point, I'm sorry I reviewed the first movie.  Why do they always cut to a commercial right in the middle of a paragraph?  Do they know I'm reviewing the movie as I watch it?  What kind of freaky time-travel paradox shit is going on here?  Am I high right now?

15 minutes left, and it's another commercial break.  Finn is back to the first scene from what looks like the first movie.  I guess they're going with "If they can destroy the first Sharknado, it'll stop all the rest!"  Oh, if only we could go back in time, and stop the first Sharknado.  Then we could stop the other 5 movies from coming after it!  A very worthwhile goal.  No wonder these people went back in time!  My butt's getting sore from sitting here so long.

Holy shit, George is back!  Go, John Heard!  Movie magic has brought you back to life for one final appearance!  Yes!  Holy shit is that Gary Busey?  Damn, he looks old.  And that's the end of the Sharknado series!  Finally!  I know, my review was so technical and coherent, wasn't it?  What can I say, amongst all the craziness, I kept my head, unlike Tara Reid.  At least they wrapped everything up.  If they come up with a Sharknado 7, forget it, I'm not reviewing it.

In other news, I watched all the episodes of Disenchanted that are showing on netflix right now.  I gotta say, I am disappointed.  It's like it can't make up its mind waht it wants to be.  The first 3 episodes are comedy, the next five episodes are like, filler material, and then the last two episodes are drama.  Bad drama, too.  Not even good drama, but just, bad, bad drama.  You know, it's no wonder I didn't watch the Simpsons or Futurama or whatever else Matt Groening created.  Maybe I should just avoid his stuff in the future.

In other, other news, I watched this series on Netflix, the Transformers, Beast Hunters series?  I don't know when it ended its TV run, but it's gone from Netflix now, I think.  Anyways, the reason I mention it is, I've been watching Transformers cartoons since the 80's, and Megatron (the leader of the Decepticons) has been a thorn in the side of Optimus Prime pretty much forever.  They've tangled a whole bunch of times, but Megatron always seems to somehow stay one step ahead of Optimus, until the end of this Beast Hunters thing.  I'm going to give away some spoilers here.  In the crappy movies they've made lately, I think Optimus killed Megatron once or twice, but in this Beast Hunters cartoon (which only lasted half a season, I guess they knew they were getting the axe), Bumblebee (the yellow sports car) kills Megatron!  :-o  I know, shocker, right?

I didn't see it coming, either, but I guess it makes sense.  Bumblebee's always been kind of the protagonist of the series.  Sure, Optimus gets all the glory of being Megatron's arch-nemesis, but Bumblebee lost his voicebox to Megatron, so it's not like they don't have a history.  Bumblebee's always had the coolest-looking car (who wants to drive around in a mack truck all day, amirite?), and always gets to meet the humans first.  Bee's always right there, on the front lines, scrapping it out with the Decepticons, even when Optimus isn't there to back him up.  So, I suppose it only makes sense that Bumblebee kills Megatron in the end.  Anyways, I only mention it, because I thought it was a cool ending, and a nice way to wrap up the Transformers cartoons.  Bumblebee even got his voice back, and they revived Cybertron, so, happy endings all around!  Nice way to wrap things up.  Just wanted to say that.

That's all for now.  Hope everyone's had a nice summer!  All you kids are heading back to school soon, if you haven't already.  Good luck with the school year, and I'll probably see you guys in September and October for more reviews.  October Horror-movie review-a-thon (OHMRAT) is coming up, and you don't want to miss that!  Well, I don't, you know, because, I'm the guy that does it.  Right here on this blog site.  Yeah.  That's all me.  Yeah, you guys have maybe never heard of it, but it's a thing.  Yep.  OHMRAT.  All mine!  Yep.  Good talk.

Enjoy the rest of summer, and I'll see you when the leaves start changing colors!  :-)