They just don’t make movies like this anymore. Something like a third of the film is just people walking. But it’s still some of the most tense walking ever. That’s to say nothing of that famous car chase. This movie has no automatic weapons. Nothing blows up. No Michael Bay sweeping camera shots. The characters are flawed and gritty. And (spoiler alert) in the end, the bad guys get away.
Highly recommended.
Forbes.com recently ran a list of the biggest private companies in the country, and it was with some pride that I saw my favorite local grocer, HEB, come in at number 11, with 2005 revenues of $12.4 billion. Consider that Hollywood’s domestic box office is projected to pass $9 billion this year. Not too shabby.
This movie is so mediocre that I keep forgetting I’ve seen it. As comic book movies go, it’s no Daredevil, but it’s not X-Men either. The backstory and development of the characters and their powers is interesting, but the movie fails to be compelling overall. The film’s antagonist, Dr. Doom, is obsessed with destroying his enemies, and really, no one cares.
Look, when you’re writing a comic book movie, take a lesson from the Star Trek film franchise. Nobody cares when the bad guy(s) threaten either the protagonists and some backwoods part of the galaxy (see ST: Nemesis or ST: Insurrection). But when the planet Earth is on the line, then the audience gets really involved (Star Trek VI or ST: First Contact).
By that logic, this movie would have been a helluva lot better if Dr. Doom had tried tried to take over the world or destroy New York or something. As it stands, I give it 2.5 out of 5.
Coming home from the Abba Sing-Along on Sunday night, Caroline and I were listening to an 80’s mix CD she made a couple of years ago. One of the tracks was Starship’s 1985 hit “We Built This City.”
It’s stuck in your head now, isn’t it?
Starship is essentially the same band as Jefferson Airplane, but the former’s crappy commercial pop is a far cry from the latter’s psychedelic rock. Compare, for instance, the aforementioned masterwork of cheese to “The White Rabbit,” a song so totally about LSD that it can only be understood as such.
Another difference for me and Caroline is that Starship is a nostalgic childhood memory, but Jefferson Airplane and the 60s are, like, ancient history because all that happened before we were born. But what we realized on Sunday is that only 15 years or so separate the height of psychedelic rock and the height of 80s crap-pop. The image of the band as a counterculture icon would still be strong in the fans’ minds, and they would be horrified by the band’s transformation.
It’s like if Kurt Cobain were still alive and somehow involved with “London Bridge.” Imagine that.
“We Built This City” is not only filled with cheesey synthesizer sounds, but it’s lyrical content is self-absorbed and self-congratulatory. I think there’s something to be said here for the story of Jefferson Airplane and subsequent incarnations as emblematic of Baby Boomers, but I’ll let you piece that one together.
Imagine Godzilla taking a dump. It would be a turd the size of a city bus, and its name would be The Dukes of Hazard. That’s the nicest thing I can say about this movie. Nothing can redeem it. Not the gratuitous boobs. Not Willie Nelson. Punching Burt Reynolds in the face. Twice.
Avoid at all costs. It really is as bad as you’ve heard.
Next up: The Fantastic Four.
Paris Hilton is a car crash I just can’t look away from; she’s just too damn trashy. Of course I had to watch House of Wax, which is I guess is her big-screen debut. No surprise, the girl can’t act her way out of a paper bag. I will say that her scenes are pretty entertaining, mainly because they’re so bad. I laughed out loud when she was killed by taking a metal pipe to her forehead, which Paris herself described as looking like a big dildo sticking out of her head. That’s class.
As for the movie itself, it’s pretty formulaic and predictable. It has a few gross-out scenes, but the attempts to make the audience jump fall flat. Chad Michael Murray and Elisha Cuthbert aren’t as annoying as I expected. Overall, it’s pretty bad: I give it 1.5 out of 5.
It’s a bit of an exaggeration to say that I have no life, but it is a fact that I haven’t been to a movie since October. Instead, I depend on Netflix to bring me movies. At this point, I think I’m still catching up on last summer’s releases. So I’m going to start reviewing these movies, even though they’re by no means current, hence “Too Late Reviews.”
But the catch is, I don’t have the greatest taste in movies. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy good, artistic films. I also have a fondness for popcorn flicks, even ones that aren’t very good; they’re entertaining. So my reviews are likely to favor these movies. Consider yourself warned.
You’ve seen the Pokemon Kid on Google Video. Maybe you’ve seen some of the webcam karaoke videos. But now some genius has combined two of humanity’s greatest passions: lip syncing to American pop music and the various American Idol incarnations. It’s Google Idol! Vote for you favorites from around the world.
Bruce Campbell is the best known of a stratum of middle-class actors who make their living primarily in straight-to-video movies. I think there must be a similar stratum of actors who work mainly in syndicated TV shows and make guest appearances on network shows. At least, that’s what a keen mind for trivia, a sharp eye for faces, and a lifetime of bad television have led me to believe.
For example, actors from a Star Trek series who have appeared in an episode of either Stargate series. On SG-1, both Q and the holographic doctor have had recurring roles, and Counselor Troi made an appearance as a Russian scientist. Chief O’Brien has been on Atlantis, along with one of the Agents Johnson from Die Hard. Somewhat more obscurely and back on SG-1, Lt. Barclay shows up in one episode, and the art collector who kidnaps Data played the documentary filmmaker. All this is to say nothing of Ben Browder and Claudia Black, who played lovers on Farscape, showing up in the last season, nor of Wayne Brady’s notable guest appearance (which was sadly devoid of improv, singing, or him smacking MacGyver in the face and shouting, “I’m Wayne Brady, bitch!”).
But that’s kid stuff, really. Let’s try a harder category: Star Trek actors who have appeared on The O.C.. The holographic doctor, again. He’s in damn near everything; he was in an episode of E.R. where he played the escrow agent or something for the nurse who tried to kill herself by ODing on barbiturates. Also, Chief O’Brien’s wife plays the headmaster at Harbor, the private school in The O.C..
But the most wonderfully mashed-up set of guest stars everâ€â€even surprassing Hulk Hogan on The A-Teamâ€â€was on an episode of MacGyver. In it, Mac is helping Shaft, who’s both a sex machine to all the chicks and running a program to rehabilitate gangs in South Central. Seriously. Commander Chipotle from ST:Voyager is also working for Shaft, but he goes vigilante to stop the rich white dudes who are supplying cocaine to the gangs. It’s up to Mac and Shaft to talk him down. No, really. It wasn’t some crazy dream. It was one of the most magical hours of my life.
Merriam-Webster online defines compleat as meaning 3 of complete: “highly proficient; a complete artist.” It’s use in the title of this anthology suggests meaning 1: “having all the necessary parts.” That’s a minor quibble, I suppose, but from the reviews of Keith Laumer’s The Compleat Bolo on Amazon.com, you’d think it was a masterwork of science fiction. Instead, it’s crappy at best.
Most of the stories in this book were written in the early sixties and clearly reflect a Cold War worldview. Even though they’re ostensibly set in the future, there’s little to suggest high technology other than the Bolos, massive artificially intelligent tanks. In fact, several of the stories are set in run-down towns on distant mining planets that are more reminiscent of, say, the town in To Kill a Mockingbird than Star Wars.
To make things worse, Laumer’s stories are classist and jingoistic. The educated characters speak regular English, but mechanics, night watchmen, and other working class characters speak in an offensive vernacular that includes words like “spearmint” (instead of “experiment”) and “gubment.” In addition, all of the characters are clearly American, even when they’re terrorists who want to liberate Turkey from a united Earth government (which is ruled, in an oddly prescient way, by Emperor George).
I don’t think that either the worldview or the classism are hallmarks of the science fiction of the time. I’ve read Dune and Heinlein’s Starship Troopers, and they’re both as good today as they were when they were written.
The stories themselves can be difficult to read at times. The events preceding the action of the opening piece are difficult to put together and seem very paradoxical as well. That same story is so overflowing with horrible similes that it was painful to finish.
I certainly won’t be reading another of Laumer’s books or stories, but I am looking forward to reading other books in the Bolo series–they’re written by other authors, so there’s hope.
