[IMDB link] [Netflix link] Ralph Bakshi!! In 720p!!

PLOT SUMMARY: Insert generic fantasy plot here.

HAIKU REVIEW: Good vs. Evil.
Epic fantasy battles.
This is not our earth.

UNCOMFORTABLE PLOT SUMMARY (inspired by this): [highlight for spoilers]→ White people fight wars using oppressed black people.

PEOPLE: Directed by master animator Ralph Bakshi (Fritz The Cat, The Lord Of The Rings, Cool World, Spicy City)!

Voice actors include Susan Tyrell (Powder, Tapeheads), Maggie Roswell (Maude Flanders/Helen Lovejoy/Miss Hoover/Milhouse’s Mom from The Simpsons) as Teegra, Stephen Mendel as Nekron.

Not worth mentioning except on a personal note — this movie stars a voice actor named “Big Yank”. Why is this funny? When Carolyn & I honeymooned in Las Vegas in February of 2000, I forgot all my underwear. Had to stop at a local store to buy some for the week. The brand they were selling? “Big Yank”. It’s been a joke for us ever since — So seeing this name in the credits made us laugh a lot.

QUIRKS: Fantasy war on a fantasy world. Fire vs Ice — with fire being the good guys, and ice being the bad guys. This world seems like it was cut from the same cloth as other great fantasy worlds, such as the worlds depicted in Conan The Barbarian, or Krull.

VISUALS: Ralph Bakshi animation — but rotoscoped. You can tell that it’s all hand-drawn, due to the “shimmer” given by the slight inconsistency in the thickness of lines between frames. I commented several times that the movement seemed very organic and fluid, but now that we found out it is rotoscoped, this makes sense: The movement really was based on real, organic actors moving. Thus the realism.

The backgrounds were very interesting. They were all hand-painted by famous fantasy painter Frank Frazetta — who had done cover art for Conan The Barbarian comics. They were NOT detail oriented at all, and lent a kind of abstract feel to the landscape. The lack of detail is most certainly more obvious in the blu-ray/high-definition version of this movie. Samurai Jack’s painted backgrounds definitely seem to have been influenced by the look and feel of this movie; Samurai Jack plays like a modernized and more cartoony (no rotoscoping) version of the animation style used in this movie.

And Teegra? She is one of the sexiest cartoons ever. She is wearing an itsy-bitsy see-through bikini. She was originally animated naked the entire movie, but they went in and added the bikini later.

POLITICS: Most battles and grunt work are performed by the “sub-humans” — who are basically racistly-drawn black people who speak in animalistic tongues. But by calling them sub-humans, there is the implication that they are a different species on this planet than the white humans (or the purple “Ice People”). Since man evolved from apes, and was originally black — it would make biological and evolutionary sense that “sub” humans would be black, since white people did not emerge until homo sapiens mutated. Despite this fact, a LOT of people are going to simply see racism — and nothing else — when they watch this movie. Of course, most of Bakshi’s stuff has been pretty racially charged, and this could actually be a social commentary about our planet — where expendable people, often of color, are frequently controlled and exploited for the gain of the wealthy elite. This topic is heavily discussed on this IMDB message board thread.

BAD STUFF: It is a very cliche fantasy movie: Good vs evil; The princess is kidnapped; The lone, unaffiliated anti-hero saves her; A final epic batttle ends the war of good vs evil. The dialog and characters are not very well developed. This movie is more about style than substance. It could definitely be considered cheesy by people who demand cutting-edge, modern animation and plot.

CONCLUSION: This movie is more about style than substance, but definitely succeeds in painting a uniquely visual, unearthly fantasy world, full of epic battles between good and evil. Any fan of the Heavy Metal cartoon would probably enjoy this. Just don’t get offended by the racist overtones–this is fantasy!

RATINGS:
Clint: Netflix: 3/5 stars. IMDB: 7/10.
Carolyn: Netflix: 3/5 stars. IMDB: 7/10.
The native public rating for this movie is Netflix: 3.4/5 stars (3.5/5 stars for people who rate like me), IMDB: 6.5/10.

RECOMMENDATION: Animation and fantasy lovers should check out this cult classic.

SIMILAR MOVIES: Heavy Metal. Conan The Barbarian.

QUOTE: “He was going to pound that guy’s head in with a rock…but he got a kiss instead.” -Carolyn
“That’s like, the most metal thing ever.” -Clint

TRIVIA: In a cut scene from the script, Darkwolf was revealed to be Nekron’s father.

Mood: awake
Music: Pixies – Letter To Memphis

[IMDB link] [Netflix link] We always watch sequels…

LIMERICK REVIEW: There once was a movie called The Punisher 2.
After the first one, we thought the franchise through.
More official characters,
More brutal murderers.
To the comic canon, it held itself much more true.

HAIKU REVIEW: The Punisher 2.
Violent, brutal, punishment.
Justice has been served.

PEOPLE: Ray Stevenson takes over as The Punisher.

QUIRKS: Insane, brutal, FAST violence. Mangling people incredibly badly, at breakneck pace.

VISUALS: Blood. Gore. LOTS of guns.

MORALS: Sometimes you have to break the rules to get justice served.

BAD STUFF: What with the actor changing, and the director not wanting to use the well-known Punisher logo on the Punisher’s chest — I had to ask, “Is that the Punisher?” several times. Great going Levi Alexander — your ego and control-freakishness made it harder to know who the main character was at times!

CONCLUSION: Although The Punisher 1 had some epic violence scenes, this one was truer to the comic than the original. 3/5 stars on Netflix, 7/10 on IMDB.

RECOMMENDATION: If you saw 1 — see this. Even if you didn’t see #1, this is a solid action movie with lots of revenge and brutality — but only against the bad guys.

SIMILAR MOVIES: DareDevil actually had some similarities with this. What with killing bad guys who deserve to be killed…

MOVIE QUOTE: The Punisher: “Let me put you out of my misery.”

COINCIDENCES: Saw 5, The Punisher 2: Two movies within 4 days where there was a bad guy named “Jigsaw”.

FRIENDS’ RATINGS: Dan & Erin and us agreed this was better than The Punisher 1.

Mood: moodlessness
Music: Kreator – Outcast

I’ve told this story before, but I need to add it to my blog for personal posterity.

Just about the worst traffic jam of my entire life was on I-66 WEST on a Saturday morning around 11AM. It’s not exactly rush hour then, so what’s the big deal? Traffic was completely and utterly stopped. To the point of most people getting out of their cars and standing around in the road. I’d never seen so many people on a freeway in my life.

What if someone was having a medical emergency? Diabetic shock? Labor? A heart attack? THOUSANDS of people were being stopped. Not just in one direction, but in BOTH directions.

Eventually, after a LONG time — I want to say 30-60 minutes — traffic started to move again. We saw the cause of the jam: A baby deer had been hit by a car, and some stupid fucking bleeding-heart couple had tied it to the median, in order to try to save it. ***SEVEN*** COP CARS were pulled over, on BOTH sides of the freeway, blocking lanes in BOTH directions. OVER A FUCKING DEER.

Do I need to mention that deer overpopulate and cause car accidents?

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration there are about 1.5 million car accidents with deer each year that result in $1 billion in vehicle damage, about 150 human fatalities, and over 10,000 personal injuries. The actual numbers are probably higher because the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s figures for deer accidents, rely on inconsistent state reporting- there is no standard reporting of deer accidents in the country yet, and a “reportable deer accident” varies significantly between states.

This is why we have hunting season, and serve deer as food. It’s them or us. In the cycle of life, food gets eaten by humans. Food is NOT supposed to cause traffic jams.

So you know what? I yelled out the window when I passed them, and promised that I would kill 3 deer later in my life to make up for this. They did NOT make a difference. In fact, I can guarantee that by saving that baby deer, they caused at least 3 full-grown deer to die. Why? Becuase I plan on killing the fuckers myself. I swear to you — when I have more expendable income, I’m going to buy a gun and go hunting. If I can’t kill a deer, I’ll kill something else. Either way, I am going to go out of my way to do this SPECIFICALLY BECAUSE of that couple’s actions that morning.

The moral of the story is: People do favors to feel good about themselves, but often these favors hurt others more than the one they are helping.

The classic example is the person on a main road who slows down to let someone on a side entrance get in. They do a great favor to that one person, at the expense of everyone behind them who has the legal right of way. Just last weekend, someone did this on Rt. 236. What happened? I missed the red light. I was the very first car at a red light that I otherwise would have made it past. By doing a favor to one person, they slowed me down. They helped one person, and hurt another. The net effect was simply shifting the time saving from someone who had the right of way [me] to someone who didn’t [the person on the side of the road, who would have eventually had a gap in traffic].

Before you do someone or something a favor, think of the consequences. There very well may be some. If you cost 2,000 of people 30 minutes of time, you are collectively wasting 41 days of peoples’ time. A deer’s life is not worth that — especially when it’s already caused an accident by going on the freeway in the first place!

Mood: full of soup
Music: Pixies – Bailey’s Walk

¿Por qué te levantas cada mañana?

¿Quién eres?

¿Te conoces realmente  a ti mismo?

Siempre buscamos respuestas…o lo intentamos…y cuando encuentras esas respuestas a todas las preguntas que te hiciste aquella noche no eres capaz de aceptarlo,te arrodillas y sucumbes a esa  terrible realidad que siempre estuvo ahi,presente,latente.

Y es que esa verdad que tanto ansias  encontrar no te hará libre,por el contrario,te condenará.

Ojalá puediera haber visto este film en el cine en vez de…ya saben…

Y es que de tal palo,tal astilla.

]]> http://helenshell.wordpress.com/2009/11/08/filmtajm/ Sat, 07 Nov 2009 23:23:54 +0000 helen http://helenshell.wordpress.com/2009/11/08/filmtajm/

Har smygfirat fars dag idag med potatisgratäng, fläskfilé och rödvinssås. Vin till detta. Gott!
Avslutade kvällen med att titta på Clintan i Gran Turino. Jag knoppade inte in i soffan trots att den inte var slut förrän över tolv. I en fembarnsmammas värld motsvarar det åtminstone fyra solar. Rekommenderas!

[IMDB link] [Netflix link]

UNCOMFORTABLE PLOT SUMMARY (inspired by this): [highlight for spoilers]→ Soldier fails to save lover’s brother, leaves lover, causing nanotechnology to lead to complications.

PEOPLE: Directed by Stephen Sommers (Van Helsing, The Mummy, Catch Me If You Can). With Dennis Quaid, Sienna Miller (Camille, Stardust). And even a brief scene with Joseph Gordon-Levitt (Tommy from 3rd Rock From The Sun)

QUIRKS: Based on the 1980s cartoon. Lots and lots and lots of action. No parachutes coming out of the exploded planes anymore! Grey goo scenario!

VISUALS: Excellent futuristic military battles! Over 250 explosions!

BAD STUFF: I was a bit confused about various aspects, as I have no recollection of the characters in the original series. But that didn’t thwart my enjoyment.

CONCLUSION: Wow. Lots of action. Looks great in HD. I don’t remember the original cartoon much, but it was nice that people actually died this time. This is about what I expected, and I felt like they didn’t really mess up. I don’t know what everyone else was whining about. I think people just hate adaptations/remakes because it never feels like watching the original as a kid did. But that’s because that part of you IS DEAD. MUAHAHA!!

RATINGS:
Clint: Netflix: 4/5 stars. IMDB: 8/10.
Carolyn: Netflix: 4/5 stars. IMDB: 7.5/10.
The native public rating for this movie is Netflix: 3.7/5 stars (3.6/5 stars for people who rate like me), IMDB 5.9/10.

RECOMMENDATION: If you can put aside your high standards and watch this as an optimist and not a pessimist, then it’s a nice way to see a high-budget, more-realistic interpretation of the low-budget 1980’s cartoon we all knew and loved.

SIMILAR MOVIES: Transformers is at similar in the sense that it is a military themed 1980s-cartoon remake.

COINCIDENCES:

#1) (Camille, G.I. Joe:Rise Of The Cobra) 2 movies within a month or so with Seinna Miller having multiple hair colors and getting married/accepting a marriage proposal.

#2) (Transformers:Revenge Of The Fallen, G.I. Joe:Rise Of The Cobra) 2 military-themed movies in the same week that had shots with 3 / 6 pyramids with sub-movie-titles of Revenge/Rise Of The [bad guy].

#3) (G.I. Joe:Rise Of The Cobra, Escape From L.A.) 2 military-themed movies 2 nights in a row that had government representatives who holographically projected themselves.

FRIENDS’ RATINGS: James O thought “Not as bad as I thought. Although, this is if I try to think of the movie through the eyes of a child.” Cindy Lee thought it was okay. Marc N said: “you will like it so long as you go in knowing it is a cool gadget and explosion kind of movie and not some epic story.”

Mood: hazy
Music: Sidney Crooke – The March Of The Ants

Madison to Juliana & Daniel

Irina  (Ella) to Natalia & Marko

Felicity (Harrison) to Clare & Craig

Teiria (M) (Nikora & Keita) to Kelly & Clint

Elliot (Charli) to Kate & Jeff

Davi (F) (Jackson) to Kait & Chris

Alex to Yanli and Yi Zhon

Mae to Tania and Lee

[IMDB link] [Netflix link] The next movie in the highest-grossing horror franchise of all time is just begging to be watched.

LIMERICK REVIEW: Saw movies are not about torture; they’re about games.
People who call them “torture porn” demonstrate an understanding quite lame.
Yes, people savagely die;
Some critics don’t seem to understand why.
The ones who survive will never look at life the same.

HAIKU REVIEW: The 5th movie in–
isn’t usually the best.
So don’t be surprised.

PEOPLE: Tobin Bell as Jigsaw, and a bunch of disposable bodies. But one of them is Carlo Rota, who people should remember as Chloe’s husband/boyfriend in 24.

QUIRKS: Much like Saw 4, much of this movie happens in parallel with Saw 3. Most of the movie is a flashback. This can get confusing, but then again — Saw 4 was similarly confusing. Saw 4 and Saw 3 happened at the same time. This movie even visits all the previous Saw movies. You see them setting up the door-gun trap in Saw 2. You hear some of the screams from Saw 4 as they were happening in Saw 4. It’s definitely a bit confusing, as were Saw 3 and Saw 4. But that’s part of the point. Jigsaw’s game is so twisted, and each movie shows us how much more twisted it was than we thought.

VISUALS: Visceral disturbing imagery, as usual. But I have to say — it wasn’t as bad as some of the previous movies. The scene with the saw was pretty bad, as one can imagine. But no pits of syringes, no brain surgery, no cutting parts of your own body out to find a surgically implanted key. Still — they were pretty damn disturbing!

MORALS: “Vengeance changes a person. It can make them realize what they’re capable of.”

POLITICS: Perhaps you shouldn’t have the same police officer work on every case involving a particular series of murders.

BAD STUFF: A bit confusing. And I had trouble telling Straus apart from Hoffman, as I can’t recognize people as easily on screen. And telling them apart was very important to the plot. Overall, this wasn’t as good as the previous 4 Saw movies… But it was still damn good.

CONCLUSION: I think this is the first Saw movie I’m only giving 4 stars to on Netflix. I gave it 8/10 on IMDB. It’s good, and important to the franchise. It’s a good setup for Saw 6. We’ll see how that turns out, given that Jigsaw has been dead for 2 movies now.

RECOMMENDATION: DO NOT WATCH THIS without thoroughly reading the Wikipedia pages for Saw 1, Saw 2, Saw 3, and Saw 4. Make sure you can tell the difference between Hoffman and Straus. And THEN watch this. And watch Saw 6, which should be out as of the posting of this review (which I wrote in March).

Here’s a quick recap of Saw 1 – 3, often done comically (these are dvd extras, and the youtube videos will probably be taken down due to copyright infringement):

MOVIE QUOTE: Jigsaw: “Murder is distasteful.”
You see — Jigsaw never kills anybody. He puts them into games. They can always choose to play the game and live, but they rarely do.

FRIENDS’ RATINGS: Nobody saw this yet?!?! Not to use argumentum ad populum, buuuut… It’s the highest-grossing horror franchise ever. You’d think after making $100M that SOMEbody I know would have rated this on Netflix…

Mood: full of hamburger pie
Music: Kreator – Behind The Mirror

(I also had to serve detention in 10th grade for walking into Spanish class while chewing gum, despite the fact that gum was allowed in other classes.)

So yes… At Rippon Middle School, around 8th grade or so, we had an absolutely horrible chorus teacher called Mr. Council (IIRC). I took chorus because I didn’t want to burden my parents with having to rent or own an expensive instrument, like my sister’s cello that eventually collected dust. I got a guitar from my parents a few years later as a birthday present, anyway — though I prefer my Dad’s 1960s guitar, as it holds its tune better.

Yes, I have trouble staying on topic. Anyway, there was a fellow by the name of Perry Roberts. He was a miscreant, IIRC. I didn’t really care for him much, other than the fact that he was the only person who could almost burp as loudly and as rapidly as I could. He was in my gym class AND in my chorus class, so I saw more of him than was really needed.

Now, I did not take chorus class seriously at all. Much like gym, I knew it was something that was not really going to affect my future survivability. Singing “The Dawning Of The Age Of Aquarius” and “Home On The Range” was not going to outfit me with any skills I would use later in my life. So I tended to sit in the back-right, where I could goof off without facing the wrath of Mr. Council — who had supposedly sent a girl to detention for sneezing before, and also seemed kind of gay at the time (but who knows).

So one day, we’re singing “Home On The Range”, and I’m working some belches in the silence between the lines. I also liked to crack my voice the way the old cartoon characters did when they sung that song during old Looney Tunes and such. So I let out a good burp in between lines, and Perry Roberts tattles on me!

“Mr. Council! Clint burped!”

The glass erupted into laughter. At least, that’s how I want to rememeber it.

I had to serve a detention for burping. But Perry? Given his record, he had to serve *THREE* detentions simply for TELLING on me.

Totally unfair, but it made for a great story. Apparently it’s okay to disrupt the class, as long as Mr. Council’s pride isn’t hurt by actually *HEARING* about it. Apparently telling on someone is worse than doing something worth telling on.

Ahh, the logic of authority.

p.s. HAPPY HALLOWEEN 2009!!!  Dethklok is playing at The Patriot Center, and Voltaire is playing at Spellbound. Hopefully we can make it both. (Update: No we didn’t! But we did go to a kick-ass party afterward.)

Mood: reminiscing
Music: Type O Negative – Suspended In Dusk

[IMDB link] [Netflix link] Watched this with Parthena & John The Canadien around Halloween 2009.

HAIKU REVIEW: Satan’s trapped essence
reminds me of lime jello
swirling to its doom.

UNCOMFORTABLE PLOT SUMMARY (inspired by this): [highlight for spoilers]→ Spiritual toxic waste spill claims needless lives, breaks mirrors.

PEOPLE: Written & directed by John Carpenter (Escape From New York, Big Trouble In Little China, In The Mouth Of Madness, Starman, Christine, The Thing, Halloween, They Live). And don’t miss Alice Cooper’s (silent) role as “Street Schizo”.

QUIRKS: Spiritual/supernatural/religious horror.

VISUALS: Not spectacular, but there are a few moments that are extremely, extremely creepy if you saw this a bunch as a kid. There were moments I’d forgotten — like the mindless typing of “I live!” into the computer over and over — that instantly touched on creeped-out parts of my brain that had not been accessed for many years. The scars definitely remained.

SOUNDTRACK: Nothing notable other than the Alice Cooper song that shares the same title as the movie … But the audio of the “broadcasts” that Brian receives in his dreams [from the future, 1999] is sampled in the beginning of Marilyn Manson’s Gary Numen/Tubeway Army cover song “Down In The Park”.

MORALS: Handle toxic waste with care!

BAD STUFF: The first 20 minutes just seemed like a bunch of random people saying a bunch of random spiritual/metaphysical bullshit that was supposed to cause you to be worried and scared.

This movie was NOWHERE NEAR as scary as I found it to be back in 1987:

I used to have to TRY to not think about the “future broadcast” parts of the movie. Now, they just seem like a silly device to try to get us to be more scared of the evil force, without having to show it actually be scary. Still a very creepy memory, though. I guess Marilyn Manson agreed, if he sampled it…

I had to move mirrors out of my room because of this movie. Now, it seems like there are only a few seconds of “scary mirror stuff”, and they just weren’t nearly as scary as they were back in 1987. I will be watching the horror movie “Mirrors” soon, to try to bring fear of mirrors back into my life.

This is part of why I tend to only want to watch “modern” movies that have come out in the last 20-30 years. I just think things lose their edge. What was scary or cutting-edge 20 yrs ago often isn’t today. There’s a reason I have no interest in old horror movies.

CONCLUSION: I always considered this one of the scariest horrors I’d ever watched as a kid. Unfortunately it did not stand the test of time.

This is a bit related to why I prefer newer movies over older movies, and would often rather watch a bad new movie than a good old movie.

This possibly only gets rated as high as I’m rating it due to nostalgia reasons. This scared the SHIT out of me, made me remove mirrors from my room, caused me to try not to think of parts of it when I went to sleep.

RATINGS:
Clint: Netflix: 3/5 stars. IMDB: 6/10.
Carolyn: Netflix: 3/5 stars. IMDB: 6/10.
The native public rating for this movie is Netflix: 3.3/5 stars, IMDB 6.5/10.

RECOMMENDATION: Go back in time and watch this movie when you’re 12.

SIMILAR MOVIES: Similar to other spiritual horrors, like The Exorcist, The Omen, Bless The Child, or even Dust Devil to some extent.

MOVIE QUOTES:

This is the type of metaphysical/spiritual/philosophical bullshit you have to swallow for the first 20 minutes of the movie:
Professor Edward Birack: “Let’s talk about our beliefs, and what we can learn about them. We believe nature is solid, and time a constant. Matter has substance and time a direction. There is truth in flesh and the solid ground. The wind may be invisible, but it’s real. Smoke, fire, water, light – they’re different! Not as to stone or steel, but they’re tangible. And we assume time is narrow because it is as a clock – one second is one second for everyone! Cause precedes effect – fruit rots, water flows downstream. We’re born, we age, we die. The reverse NEVER happens… None of this is true! Say goodbye to classical reality, because our logic collapses on the subatomic level… into ghosts and shadows.”
…basically, there’s a lot of justification that is basically trying to assign a psuedorational justification to why you should be scared, since the movie isn’t as scary as it wants to be.

This is one of the creepy things:
“Voice: This is not a dream… not a dream. We are using your brain’s electrical system as a receiver. We are unable to transmit through conscious neural interference. You are receiving this broadcast as a dream. We are transmitting from the year one, nine, nine, nine. You are receiving this broadcast in order to alter the events you are seeing. Our technology has not developed a transmitter strong enough to reach your conscious state of awareness, but this is not a dream. You are seeing what is actually occurring for the purpose of causality violation.”
–quote also sampled by Marilyn Manson

That extremely creepy scene would have worked better if they had related it to the events of the movie more, instead of randomly showing it at seemingly random intervals throughout the film.

COINCIDENCES: (Prince Of Darkness, Drag Me To Hell) 2 movies in 2 nights that are hell-themed horrors where people had things distributed unwillingly into their mouths.

FRIENDS’ RATINGS: Parthena really liked it. John The Canadien thought it was hilarious (?!?!?).

Mood: annoyed at Windows XP for sucking so much worse than Windows 2000 Advance Server
Music: ALL – Ratchet

[IMDB link] [Netflix link] I had this on VHS, but I got it around the time that I stopped watching VHS movies. So, finally got around to watching a dvd of it, 5+ yrs later…

PEOPLE: Joe Pesci plays a mobster (of course). Andy Comeau is the main character, who comes off as a poor man’s John Cusack. Kristy Swanson (the original Buffy The Vampire Slayer, from the movie, as well as Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Hot Shots!) kept reminding me of Elizabeth Banks for some reason. George Hamilton (who was in Dynasty for a year) plays an uppity parent, along with his alcoholic wife, played by Dyan Cannon (Ally McBeal). David Spade, Todd Louiso (from Snakes In A Plane).

QUIRKS: I think the title pretty much says it all. Throw in mobsters and Mexico, and you have a recipe for a passable comedy.

Also, they have the song “Mr. Sandman” in it, which I just saw Gene Ween Band perform live last December.

And a really bitchy grandmother…

And a surreal dream sequence thrown in for no reason other than to make us giggle and use up their special effects budget

VISUALS: Heads… so many heads…

CONCLUSION: This was a decent comedy that had us laughing. The situations were unique. It only really gets a 3 star / 6/10 “generic pass” from us, but we weren’t disappointed. It met our expectations rather precisely. And it’s NOT a romantic comedy; though there IS a romantic relationship to be mended, it’s NOT central to the plot.

RECOMMENDATION: If you like comedies, and are annoyed at how many comedies are romantic comedies… This is a good one to watch. It certainly entertained us.

MOVIE QUOTE: Tommy Spinelli: “Don’t ever fuck with a guy looking for heads.”

FRIENDS’ RATINGS: Benj liked it.

Mood: recovered from Carolyn’s birthday party
Music: The Misfits – Die, Die My Darling

[IMDB link] [Netflix link] Watched in 720p with Tabbitha, Parthena, and Eli.

PLOT SUMMARY: A loan officer is cursed by a gypsy who she denied a loan to, and will be dragged to hell in 3 days unless she passes the curse on to someone else.

LIMERICK REVIEW: There once was a loan officer named Christine,
who eventually saw things most people have never seen.
Cursed by a disgruntled lady,
Attacked by spirits quite shady…
By the end of the movie her mouth was probably not pristine.

HAIKU REVIEW: Gypsies will curse you!
If you’re a loan officer…
Give that extension!

UNCOMFORTABLE PLOT SUMMARY (inspired by this): [highlight for spoilers]→ Loan officer’s soul is exploited by disgruntled gypsy.

PEOPLE: Sam Raimi’s first horror movie since Army Of Darkness / Evil Dead! The script was completed in the early to mid-1990s, right after Army Of Darkness was released.

Starring Alison Lohman (Beowulf, The Thirteenth Floor), who I think looks a lot like Jenna Fischer (Pam from The Office); Justin Long (Zack & Miri Make A Porno, Idiocracy, Happy Campers), who I think looks like Ross from Friends (David Schwimmer), if he had down syndrome. With Lorna Raver (The Young And The Restless) as the gypsy lady, Dileep Rao (Avatar) as the psychic who tries to help them, and Reggie Lee (Tropic Thunder, Pirates Of The Caribbean 2-3, Psycho Beach Party) as the douchebag co-worker.

QUIRKS: Generic horror. Grosser and funnier than most.

VISUALS: Raimi-esque visuals on a good Hollywood budget. This film actually manages to out-gross any other Raimi movie. Sooo much stuff went into her mouth!!

MORALS: [highlight for spoilers]→ The most important moral of this story is to not put objects in envelopes. And if you have something important in an envelope — you might want to check that it’s really what you think it is.

BAD STUFF: It’s a bit predictable, since this is a generic horror movie.

And there’s one particular effect — with eyeballs popping out — that looks waaaay too obviously fake.

CONCLUSION: Despite the fact that it’s a bit predictable and cliche, this was a very well-executed horror film. They even got ME to jump once — though usually I was busy laughing my ass off. Raimi is back in business doing what he does best! This is a successful horror worth seeing!

RATINGS:
Clint: Netflix: 4/5 stars. IMDB: 8/10.
Carolyn: Netflix: 4/5 stars. IMDB: 8/10.
The native public rating for this movie is Netflix: 3.9/5 stars (4.0/5 stars for people who rate like me), IMDB 7.5/10.

RECOMMENDATION: See it! Unless you totally hate horror movies.

SIMILAR MOVIES: Similar to most Raimi horror movies

MOVIE QUOTE: “You’d be surprised what you’ll do, when the Lamia comes for you.”

FRIENDS’ RATINGS: Ian really liked it.

The people who watched it with us seemed to as well: Tabbitha seemed to really enjoy it, and was excited and practically jumping for joy. Parthena said it was a lot scarier than she expected, but also a lot grosser. Eli seemed to have a good time as well.

Mood: yay!!
Music: Chris Isaak – Wicked Game

[IMDB link] [Netflix link] [Ian's DCIst review]

UNCOMFORTABLE PLOT SUMMARY (inspired by this): [highlight for spoilers]→ Murderer sacrifices self to help save humanity. (Okay, not a very good one, sorry.)

PEOPLE: Directed by McG (Charlie’s Angels). With Christian Bale (Batman from The Dark Knight/Batman Begins, American Psycho), Sam Worthington (Avatar), Moon Bloodgood (why have I heard of her?), Anton Yelchin (Checkov from the 2009 Star Trek) as a younger Kyle Reese, Bryce Dallas Howard (Gwen Stacy from Spider-Man 3, Lady In The Water, The Village), Michael Ironside, and a small role by Helena Bonham Carter (Harry Potter, Sweeney Todd, Corpse Bride).

QUIRKS: The first Terminator movie to completely take place in the post-apocalyptic wasteland hinted at by previous Terminator movies.

VISUALS: Great futuristic robot battles. Reminds me of The Matrix meets Transformers meets Mad Max.

MORALS: It is our hearts that make us human. Kind of a corny moral.

BAD STUFF: Every Terminator movie has been pretty action-focused, but this one has even more action and less story than the previous three.

CONCLUSION: Although this is perhaps the worst of the 4 Terminator movies… It’s about friggin’ time that one take place completely in the future. Cool robot battles; lots of action. This was still a really good action flick — and I’m hoping for a Terminator 5 in the future. The story’s not over until Skynet’s destroyed.

RATINGS:
Clint: Netflix: 4/5 stars. IMDB: 8/10.
Carolyn: Netflix: 4/5 stars. IMDB: 8/10.
The native public rating for this movie is Netflix: 3.7/5 stars (4.0/5 stars for people who rate like me), IMDB: 6.9/10.

RECOMMENDATION: All 4 Terminator movies are worth watching. This one is no exception.

MOVIE QUOTE: John Connor: I knew it. I knew it was coming. But this is not the future my mother warned me about. And in this future, I don’t know if we can win this war. This is John Connor.

FRIENDS’ RATINGS: Ian didn’t like it (see review link at top). I agree with some of his criticisms, but not with the opinion that they made the movie bad.

Mood: annoyed
Music: Pixies – Bailey’s Walk

Just in case you forgot what they look like...

Clint got this on the way out of the club one Sunday last year.  Season’s open again. These things are pretty tasty!!!

[IMDB link] [Netflix link] Carolyn HAD rated this 2 stars on Netflix and didn’t remember it from being a kid. I *think* I may have seen it, but absolutely NOTHING in it rang a bell, so I COULD be wrong. Parthena said it was one of her fave movies as a kid, so she got to watch it with us.

LIMERICK REVIEW: There once was a fantasy called Willow.
A baby found floating in a river — D’oh!
Keeping it alive was a pain.
To the queen, it was a bane.
A sorceress is quite a formidable foe.

HAIKU REVIEW: Willow’s a midget?!?!?!
The things you forget with age!
Nice to revisit.

PEOPLE: Directed by Ron Howard (the narrator from Arrested Development!), written by George Lucas and Bob Dolman. Val Kilmer certainly makes the ladies happy, but he was still better in Real Genius. Did you know Joanne Whalley (Sorsha) was a groupee in the Pink Floyd movie? Her career is still going, but I don’t think she’s done anything as well-known as Willow since then. Nor has she ever looked as good, judging by her IMDB pictures. Maybe that’s why Val Kilmer divorced her? (OHHH, I totally went there.)

The baby (Ruth/Kate Greenfield) was actually the best baby actor I’ve ever seen–which really just means they spent many hours photographing it until it did the right things. And they were never in a movie again… And little people. Tons of little people, and some of the standard familiar faces. This is the most little people in any movie since The Wizard Of Oz, and they had to advertise nationally to get that many. (Some trivia: At a party, I once saw a little person smoking pot, asked around, and she was friends of some friends and had been an Ewok in Star Wars episode 6: Return Of The Jedi. So I’ve seen an Ewok smoke pot! Who else can brag about this?)

QUIRKS: Most of your standard fantasy movie tropes apply here. Formulaic to a tee; yet exceeding expectations and out-doing many of the similar movies that came out in the early 80s. More of these quirks are discussed in the “SIMILAR MOVIES” section below, where I compare it to Lord Of The Rings.

There are two Wilhelm Screams in this movie.

And some mis-treatment of babies.. always a plus. lol

And some comic relief from the 2 “very tiny” people, the Smurf-sized “brownies”. They really reminded me of the worms from Worms 3-D (the X-box version, not the PS2 version).

VISUALS: The fantasy world here is much richer than most 1980s fantasy movies. Closer to the caliber of the Lord Of The Rings movies in terms of having a rich world filled with many different kinds of creatures. Special effects have come a long way since then, but they still did a good job.

MORALS: Even reluctant tiny people can be heroes. But we all knew this when we read Lord Of The Rings…

BAD STUFF: The only thing bad about it is that it was kind of “generic” in the sense of following many established tropes for Fantasy movies. But this movie didn’t win out (versus the others) in uniqueness of ideas, it won out by executing these ideas in a better way. It doesn’t get boring like Legend. Solutions to problems are, as usual, “conveniently convenient”, but not as badly as in other movies.

CONCLUSION: I think by re-watching it I bumped it up from 3 stars to 4 stars on Netflix, and up to 7/10 on IMDB. After seeing so many sub-par fantasy movies like Legend and Krull … It’s nice to see one that is better than a “generic pass”.

RECOMMENDATION: Fantasy lovers and 80s movie lovers should definitely watch (or re-watch) this.

SIMILAR MOVIES: Lord Of The Rings!!! I was cracking jokes the whole time about how ever character was almost directly analogous to a character in Lord Of The Rings. The Nelwyns are the hobbits. Willow is Frodo. The baby is the ring. Bad people in horses come after them like the Nazgul. A “fellowship” is formed. Cherlindrea is “Galadriel” and gives “Frodo” (Willow) a magic wand instead of a strand of her hair, and then gets really creepy just like Galadriel talking about how horrible she could be if she had the ring. The Brownies are the “elves”, only 2 inches tall but still able to take you via bow & arrow in the middle of the forest. The “orcs” are simply a human army. Val Kilmer/Madmartigan is Aragorn. Bavmorda may as well be Sauron (and didn’t land another movie role for 12 years, until she was “The Queens” in Monarch). Nockmaar may as well have been Mordor; Tir Asleen may as well have been Minas Tirith. And there’s even a dragon, like in The Hobbit.

It is also of course somewhat similar to a lot of the 80s fantasy movies that came out, like Krull, Legend, The NeverEnding Story, or Labyrinth. And has parallels to Star Wars as well.

MOVIE QUOTE: Cherlindrea: Elora Danan must survive. She must fulfill her destiny and bring about the downfall of Queen Bavmorda. Her powers are growing like an evil plague. Unless she is stopped, Bavmorda will control the lives of your village, your children, everyone. All creatures of good heart need your help, Willow. The choice is yours.

COINCIDENCES: Supergirl, Willow. 2 1980’s movies in a row with love potions.

FRIENDS’ RATINGS: Christie and Chris H/Lisa loved it. Ian & Tatiana really liked it. Christian H & Jordan & Benj liked it. Chris Z didn’t like it. Becky hated it.

Mood: full
Music: Kreator – Awakening Of The Gods

[IMDB link] [Netflix link] A great movie to see in HD.

PEOPLE: Same as the “first” Transformers movie. Michael Bay directs, Shia LaBeouf (worst…name…ever) and Megan Fox star. And of course, Peter Cullen reprises his role as the voice of Optimus Prime – a role he’s now played for 25 years.

QUIRKS: Epic robot battle action. Damn this movie has a lot of trivia!

VISUALS: Epic robot battle action.

BAD STUFF: I’m still annoyed at how they changed all the Transformers from the canon. It was really hard to tell who is who at times. In the opening battle, neither of us had any clue as to who was a good guy or a bad guy.

CONCLUSION: After accepting the flaws of how they changed the function and appearance of the Transformers, this movie is quite good. Running at a nice long length of 2.5hrs, there’s more than one challenge to be overcome. There is a LOT LOT LOT of action. As much as you may want to hate Michael Bay, this was pretty damn entertaining. Of course, I am looking through the eyes of nostalgia, which added a star to this movie. Carolyn was not quite as impressed.

RATINGS:
Clint: Netflix: 5/5 stars (nostalgia bonus!). IMDB: 8/10.
Carolyn: Netflix: 3/5 stars. IMDB: 6/10. Apparently Clint liked this way more. Go transformers!
The native public rating for this movie is Netflix: 4.0/5 stars (3.7/5 stars for people who rate like me), IMDB 6.2/10.

RECOMMENDATION: If you saw the 1st Transformers live-action movie, then you should definitely continue and check this one out.

Mood: annoyed at Windows XP for sucking so much worse than Windows 2000 Advance Server
Music: Nine Inch Nails – Zero-Sum

[IMDB link] [Netflix link]

LIMERICK REVIEW: There once was a hero named Superman.
They’re still trying to make as many “Super”-movies as they can.
This one was the blandest–
Tho we still managed to stand it.
It’s only really worth watching if you’re a big fan.

HAIKU REVIEW: Superman franchise:
So many incarnations…
This one was the worst!

PEOPLE: Helen Slater, who went on to play Lara-El in Smallville, as well as tons of guest spots in TV shows, and 10+ crappy 90s movies (only 3 movies in the 2000s). She never did return to being a brunette after that. Faye Dunaway as the annoying “evil witch full of herself” character, and Brenda Vaccaro (Midnight Cowboy) as her lackey/henchwoman. Peter O’Toole and Mia Farrow are in this as well. Marc McClure plays Jimmy Olsen, as he did in the other 4 1980s Superman movies. Peter Cook.

QUIRKS: Bad 1980s special effects. The Phantom Zone. Witchcraft (!!!). Kryptonians who survived Krypton blowing up. Schoolgirls (why?). Monster tractors destroying a town (but not nearly as bad as in The Terminator 3). Lucy Lane instead of Lois Lane.

VISUALS: Really not that good at all. The first 2 Star Trek movies had far better visuals than this movie, and they came out sooner!

BAD STUFF: The movie was kind of slow. Granted we watched the Director’s Cut, but still… The dialog was kind of stilted, the acting very “generic 80s”, and all-in-all this is probably the worst “super” endeavor we’ve ever seen.

CONCLUSION: 3/5 stars on Netflix, 5/10 on IMDB. It was still moderately enjoyable to see Kara/Supergirl in another incarnation, as Carolyn & I are Superman fanboys (me, moreso). But overall the movie is not that great, and kind of long (director’s cut adds 21 minutes, but removes some scenes as well). It only scrapes by with a 5 on IMDB — barely — and a 3 on Netflix — barely — because it’s so “super” (thanks for asking).

RECOMMENDATION: See this only if your intention is to see everything Superman-related, especially from the “Christopher Reeve Era” of the Superman mythos. Reeve was gonna be in it, but bowed out at the last minute, as did Demi Moore (who was going to play Lucy Lane). This could have been better…but it wasn’t.

Mood: digesting delicious Carolyn cooking
Music: Kreator – Lambs To Slaughter

Then he came and picked it up. That’s like 4 hrs of driving or something!

Topics included:

Causality Violation: The Mark I Adjacent Day NoVa Theorem has been violated/disproven.

Phones are easy to forget. Keep them in your pocket.

Mark only watched 2 shows in the 1980s that I didn’t: Gimme A Break!

My So-Called Life is just another system of control that Mark can’t stand, even when it uses music that he likes in it.

Screech’s sex tape was called “Saved By The Smell”.

Carrie Prejean is a stupid bitch.

Mark found random chocolate.

If you got hit by lightning 7 times, you probably wouldn’t _talk_ about it every day, but you probably *would* _think_ about it every day.

Clint: “Your mom was in Phrygian mode last night.”

Clint: “I’m afraid your bleeding heart has seeped into your dreamscape.”

Opeth covering Alice In Chains (Would) sounds pretty much the same, but more atmospheric. “Laurence Of Arabia” -Mark

Mood: full as fuck and ready to party

Music: Nine Inch Nails – March Of The Fuckheads

I think it’s particularly awesome (and annoying) when you’re watching some action movie that has lots of explosions… And then right after the explosions stop, something near the speaker falls down on the ground (sometimes/preferably  smashing into bits). It’s amazing that an explosion can be so faithfully reproduced that it actually hurts real objects in your house, even though the movie isn’t real.

…AWESOME!!!

(I used to knock pictures off the walls of adjacent dorm rooms in Pritchard Hall at Virginia Tech by playing Ministry’s “So What?” as loud as I could… haha)

Mood: your mom.. that’s what

Music: Kreator – Toxic Trance

Holy shit! This commercial was a staple of growing up in the DC area in the 1980s. How can anyone NOT remember 1-800-USA-1000, the most dominant phone number in history? Nobody bodders me! Nobody bodders me eider!

I remember the lyrics as “Jhoon Rhee Fight For Life!”, not “Might For Right”, but apparently there were around 4 different versions of this commercial. I extracted the audio to this and posted it HERE, in case anyone wants  to throw this on their mp3 player.

And yes, I read all 288 comments, and voted the appropriate ones up.

And then Greg found this parody of it!!

Also, a Carvel ice cream commercial… I totally remember that guy’s voice:

Someday, I should upload my local Woodbridge commercials that I converted from VHS to AVI I have one for CD Exchange!

Mood: gettin ready for breakfast
Music: Pixies – The Thing