Prometheus

Prometheus (2012)

73% on Rotten Tomatoes (out of 231 reviews)

Runtime: 124 minutes

Directed by: Ridley Scott

Starring: Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender, Logan Marshall Green, Idris Elba, Charlize Theron

From: 20^th Century Fox

Oh, this movie... as I've said before when talking about Aliens, that movie and the original Alien are pretty awesome works of filmmaking. It's been a long time since I've seen Alien 3 but the producer's cut they have on there is far better than the theatrical version, but of course it would have been best if they let a guy who proved to be a highly renowned director in hindsight do his own thing instead of the studio interfering. It's been even longer since I've seen Alien Resurrection but the one time I saw it, I wasn't really a fan, despite some cool moments.

Of course, in my universe those AvP films never happened.

I remember when this project was first announced there was a general negative reaction; amongst the complaints I heard was that “Who cared how that space jockey ended up in the giant chair you see in Alien”? It turns out, this movie doesn't actually answer that question as it takes place on a nearby planet but not THE planet where Alien and Aliens take place!

I don't know when but suddenly people got real excited for the movie. Maybe it was the teaser trailers. Unlike most people, though, those trailers did nothing for me at all. Then, the movie came out, first elsewhere and then here in North America. I heard some rather mixed reviews; turns out, on a forum I looked at a massive thread after the fact and the mood was generally negative towards the film. I was surprised as before I had heard some rather positive reviews, and not just from Roger Ebert.

I am not sure what to say about the plot as it not being known was a big drawing card for the pre-release advertising. I'll just go with what was said on IMDb: “A team of explorers discover a clue to the origins of mankind on Earth, leading them on a journey to the darkest corners of the Universe. There, they must fight a terrifying battle to save the future of the human race.” That's pretty accurate.

I'll talk about the positives first: The idea of the story is real interesting and rather ballsy for a big studio film. The visuals, sets, and what have you look really great. I mean, it's a pretty sweet universe. Most of the performances are at least fine.

However, the script... it's not that great. I don't know if the movie got cut to hell but too often things just don't make a whole lot of sense. Characters act one way in a scene and then in the very next scene they do a 180 for no reason at all. Big to extremely big moments happen and most if not all of the other characters really react to it at all. There's a shocking reveal and I have no clue why it was even done as if done in a different way it would have been a lot better and made much more sense. It's things like that which really hurt the movie. There are many examples I won't list but they are there.

But at least Idris Elba (the best and coolest character in the film) gets a booty call from Charlize Theron! I have no idea why it happened as it came totally out of left field, but good for him. I have no idea why STEPHEN STILLS gets referenced; yes, I am not BS'ing here. I guess that in the late 21^st century Crosby, Stills, & Nash (and sometimes Young) are suddenly highly revered. I at least laughed at that sort of unexpected left turns.

In terms of how this is related to the Alien movie and its universe... the best I can say while being vague is that it is in the same universe but it's not really a prequel. Some things are explained but a lot is not.

As you might expect the people who (fairly or not) expected this return to the sci-fi genre by Scott to be as great as Alien or Blade Runner (two of the best all-time films in said genre) are devastated by how it turned out. Me, I am still disappointed by it as the script really is not that good; it's not a massive disappointment though as I never had great expectations for it and at least the visuals and sound were great and they tried to be pretty deep.

I'll be back tomorrow night.

Blonde Ambition

Blonde Ambition (2007)

Runtime: 93 minutes

Directed by: Scott Marshall (the son of Garry, believe it or not)

Starring: Jessica Simpson (unfortunately), Luke Wilson, Andy Dick (really unfortunately), Penelope Ann Miller, Rachael Leigh Cook

From: Millennium Films

Yes, I watched a romantic comedy. I've covered many genres while I've been doing this; that particular genre, though... no. Those just aren't for me, to be honest. However, I managed to find this (nevermind how) and I was curious to watch what I heard was a really bad movie, released only in 8 theatres in Texas and grossing a TOTAL of 1,132 dollars; that is mind-boggingly awful. It did much better overseas, as least comparatively speaking. I laugh that it's from the company that later gave us such movies as The Expendables and Conan the Barbarian. I chuckle that this was a vanity production for Jessica and her incredibly creepy dad, who helped produce the damn thing.

As you can tell already, I am not a fan of either Simpson nor Andy Dick, and they didn't do anything here to make me think any better of them. In fact, they pissed me off! I mean, Jesus H., this film... while there are some lines that were amusing, overal this is a slog.

The plot: a country bumpkin girl ends up in New York, lives with her cousin (Cook), and through some wacky circumstances ends up being used by her co-workers at her new job, and she also romances Ben (a dissheveled Wilson, but would you want to look your best for this sort of movie?)

Where do I start... the story is rather terrible. It utterly fails in being funny and romantic. And you'd think that the makeup department would want to make their big star look fantastic. Well... she usually has on way too much makeup, as if she's playing a circus clown. Thankfully the rest of the ladies weren't painted so harshly so they looked better. I'd always take Ms. Cook 10 out of 10 times just based on looks alone, and her worked or real persona alone is enough to make me avoid Ms. Simpson at all costs. Besides, I'd have to fight off her fighter for the love of his daughter... and oh yes, this is one of those movies where characters lie for no real good reason and bad things happen because they are unwilling to say the simplest things to each other.

I hope that all the people who had to appear in this dreck at least were paid well. Besides Rachael and the other people I listed above there's Willie Nelson (!), Larry Miller, Penny Marshall (not exactly a surprise given that the director is her nephew) and not that I have ever liked him, but Ryan Dunn has a brief appearance. I never thought he was funny or amusing and it goes with the rest of the Jackass guys. The fact that he killed himself and unfortunately killed his pal while drunk driving in his fancy car did not make me suddenly like him, let me put it that way. So of course a bunch of people were saddened that he passed away and seemingly did not care at all about the passenger and I rightly said that he was an ass who killed an innocent person due to his actions, and boy did some people get pissed at me; figures. I still stand by what I said, though.

Anyhow, I say that you REALLY should avoid this unless you're a Rachael Leigh Cook completist, you want to see a really unsubtle and stupid film, you enjoy the lead character complusively brushing their teeth (?!), you enjoy goofy and lame slapstick, lame office politics are your thing, or you want to see some guys playing priests from Norway singing Baby Got Back and getting wasted at karaoke.

I'll be back Wednesday night.

The Naked Man

The Naked Man (1998)

Runtime: 98 minutes

Directed by: J. Todd Anderson

Starring: Michael Rappaport, Michael Jeter, John Carroll Lynch, Rachael Leigh Cook

From: October Films

Here is a movie that I know I saw like two minutes of on TV in what had to be '99, but never checked out and watched in full until tonight. What was an inpetus was that I was fooling around on YouTube and stumbled across a clip that had some brief scenes from the movie, and I saw that a barely 18 year old Ms. Cook was dressed like a biker chick from the 80's, with giant hair, a leather top, ripped fishnets... well, it shot up... I mean, the movie shot up to the top of the queue on Netflix.

I'll admit that what I've seen from The Coen Brothers, I am not a big fan. Too strange and off-putting for me. I HATE The Big Lebowski and I have zero comprehension as to why so many people around my age think it's one of the greatest films ever made. Maybe I've seen the wrong stuff, though, and thus sometime soon I'll try to watch at least one or two of their movies so that I can talk about it on here and possibly piss people off if I don't like them. How does that relate to this movie? Well, it was co-written by Ethan Coen and director Anderson, who has been a long time storyboard artist for the brothers.

The plot on IMDb sounds rather simplistic: “A man takes matters into his own hands when a pharmaceutical kingpin moves into his town to cause some real trouble.”

What the plot should actually read is, “I watch a movie about how a chiropractor and part time indy pro wrestler with pregnant girlfriend in tow reunite with their parents, who run a drugstore/soda shop in a small town. You get to see how he trained to defend himself from bullies as a teenager and he clashed with his father as he did not want his son to be a chiropractor. They do reunite, though, and soon thereafter a guy with spina bifida and a fat guy who dresses and acts like Elvis kills the parents and seriously hurt the girlfriend due to the store not having a handicapped ramp. Then, the movie dives in a surrealistic, absuridst, and incredibly off-putting mess as Mr. Chiropractor snaps and he starts killing people as he meets up with biker babe Cook and they eventually get around to getting revenge on the crippled guy and the fat guy as you see strange characters such as an indy promoter from seemingly the 30's and gumshoe detectives from seemingly the 40's... and it's just not for me.”

I swear, what I just wrote above is entirely accurate. The movie was just too weird and strange for my tastes, but the biggest thing is that it was so off-putting. That sort of thing will make me not like a film rather quickly. Truth be told, Cook kept me watching the movie; otherwise I would have turned it off in disgust. Besides being rather easy on the eyes, her character was rather normal, at least in comparison to the others.

At least there were some humorous moments and stuff I laughed at, such as Rachael having “Love” tattooed on the top of one boob and “Hate” tattooed on the top of the other boob. That is a nice take on The Night Of The Hunter gag... and speaking of that, there's another movie I saw and thought was overrated, despite Robert Michum and Lillian Gish both being pretty awesome in it.

I'll be back Sunday night with a new review.

Get Carter (The Remake, Unfortunately)

Get Carter (2000)

Runtime: 103 minutes

Directed by: Stephen Kay

Starring: Sly Stallone, Miranda Richardson, Rachael Leigh Cook, Alan Cumming

From: Franchise Pictures

I figured I should dive into one of the DVD's I purchased during the weekend from the tremendous new and used DVD store known as MovieStop. I've been there a few times and it's an awesome place to find DVD's and Blu-Rays on the cheap. One of the ones I got was this film, as it is not available at my local Blockbuster and it's a movie I've known for a long time is said to be not good by many, but I hadn't seen it... nor have I seen the original, shame to say. I know that is on YouTube (I know, I know...) so someday soon I need to watch it. I know that my review of this will help out the remake in that I can't compare it to the original, which many say is pretty damn awesome and I am sure it is.

The plot... Sly is Jack Carter, a big dude who works in Las Vegas for the casinos... in that he kicks ass if you don't pay up. His brother dies from a car crash but it's suspicious so he believes that his bro was actually murdered. He goes around to find out who was behind it and why.

After having watched this movie tonight, the first thing that comes to mind is... man did they ever try hard for this to be “cool”. You know, odd camera tricks, editing, the works. Much of it is distracting and doesn't seem worth the effort. Then, the musical score is fine on its own but I don't know if it works in the movie. I howled with laughter when I saw that Jellybean Benitez collaborated on that score. He was a big DJ... in the 80's and I don't know if he's really done anything since the 80's. Now, I do think he's cool; his version of the 70's song The Mexican is pretty awesome. I was just not expecting to see him have anything to do with this movie.

One thing I do know about the original is that Jack Carter in that was one ruthless SOB, not really any better than the people he went after. Here, he's a tough guy but he ends up being more of a normal dude who has a soft side. No wonder why various people dislike this movie in comparison to the original. That sounds like a major change. Oh, and here there's a main story about Jack finding out what really happened with his brother, and then there's a side story about Jack's boss in Vegas really wanting him to return back to his job, and a girl the both of them like (Gretchen Mol) and that is just a distraction more than anything else.

At least there are things to praise. There are familiar faces in the cast, like Mickey Rourke, Alan Cumming, John C. McGinley, Mark Boone Junior, and the original Carter himself, Michael Caine. There's nice acting all around. It sounds biased but I genuinely enjoyed Cook's performance. There are some sad moments with her and she did a nice job. Oh, and she was smoking hot too... even when she was smoking cigarettes. It's set in Seattle so of course there's not a lot of sunshine and a whole lot of rain. And there are some funny moments. So, I'll say that this was fine but I imagine the original is so much better.


This was half of a European film, in that you see a lot of smoking taking place. The other part, that there be a lot of nudity, was not present. I would not have minded that... just to follow that rule, not because the cast included ladies like Cook, Mol, and Rhona Mitra!

And I imagine the original doesn't have dialogue such as, “Like cat piss in the snow”.

I'll be back Thursday night.

Shrooms

Shrooms (2007)

Runtime: 84 minutes

Directed by: Paddy Breathnach

Starring: Lindsey Haun, Jack Huston, Max Kasch, Alice Greczyn

From: Capitol Films, amongst many different companies

Yep, I am tying in tonight's review to what I talked about last night. Plus, this is a movie about American kids in Ireland finding wild shrooms and then taking them, so that is humorous. Then, on the discussion page for the film on IMDb there is a huge kerfuffle about how Ms. Greczyn wears a tank top in one scene and obviously, she was “European” at the time and she didn't believe in shaving her armpits at the time. Now, I've looked at enough of her photos (um, I mean...) to know that she has been doing that in recent years; maybe it was just a phase... now, that sort of thing isn't for me but that is a lady's choice to do such a thing. I know from her linked to blog yesterday that she is the GIRL POWER type which is cool and all, but she isn't the extreme type who seem to hate all men and act like they are militant about it. Boy could I rant about some of those dames, but that is far from what I am supposed to talk about here.

Anyhow, like I said, this is about a group of kids who vacation in Ireland and a big reason they are there is to have some magic mushrooms growing wild in a field. They take some then they hear a wild story about some spooky stuff happening in those woods. The shrooms start to take effect and they see some weird things, but is it the psilocybin mushrooms or is the weird stuff actually happening to them?

I'll note that this production, half Danish and half Irish, was actually filmed in Ireland. The different from the norm story and the unique for me setting did pique my interest.

As for the actual movie... I should mention first that it is not a movie about gore. It's not violent at all. Rather, it's about being freaky and creeping you out. I'll say that the movie was certainly better in idea than in execution but it was still fine as something out of the norm. The second half is rather trippy and it's quite hard to figure out what's real and what's is the result of the shrooms taking effect. As a weird sort of dream thing I say it's fine.

Unfortunately, there's an ending which takes a turn that made me groan out loud. No spoilers, but it's an ending that's been used too often in recent years and it isn't really that clever anymore. But hey, in this kind of movie you can argue that the ending we saw was just another trip and that was not what actually happened. Thus, I can't get too mad at it.

In terms of things I liked, the Irish setting was used well. A lot of forest, some of which looked unique. There was also a scene which took place in a marsh and there were tall reeds. That looked cool. The acting was fine, and very important to me, none of the characters annoyed me or pissed me off to the point that I turned against the film. Yes, I even was fine with a lout who was only known as Bluto. So, if this sort of thing that is like Total Recall in that you aren't exactly sure what's going on and things aren't wrapped in a nice bow at the end, then you might as well check this out on Netflix Instant Streaming.

Oh, and you also get to see a TALKING COW. That was as great as it sounds.

I'll be back on Tuesday night.

Twitter Madness

Here is something out of the norm for me. I am going to talk about Twitter. Now, you can find me here if you wish. I am not the type to tweet celebrities and hassle them for respondes or retweets. In fact that is a rather rare thing for me to do. One time I tweeted Amanda Crew (i.e. the lead girl of Sex Drive) and I made a joking comment about a trend at the time relating to her and she responded that she was flattered by my comment. Otherwise, though...

But, awhile back I discovered that Rachael Leigh Cook was on Twitter and that she was often pretty amusing on there. I mentioned to her a few days ago that I had finally seen one of her films and I was surprised by that fact. She responded that she was flattered but possibly apologetic, as I had not mentioned which one it was. I responded that it was Scorched and she seemed glad it was that one rather than one of the poorer films she has done and then referenced a quote from the movie. I was and still am flattered she responded, but she seems willing to respond to fans so that is good.

Then, I discovered early on Friday that the family of the late character actor Joe Spinell created a Twitter account for him. I responded that it was cool he was on Twitter and they thanked me for the kind words.

Finally, I'll mention one last dame. I don't even know why but last night I was thinking of Alice Greczyn, a name that you may not recognize but she was the main Amish girl in Sex Drive and she's been in some other films and TV shows; I don't watch the show but I know she's in The Lying Game on ABC Family. After looking at her account I was quite impressed. Even though she has a rather thin frame she must have great genetics as she is a big fan of food (a good way to impress me), sometimes tweets interesting links, and seems rather intelligent based on what she posts. She also has a blog and I don't want to use the term verbose as that has a negative connotation but she is not afraid to write a lot (I mean, even so than I do) and from what I checked out while I don't always agree with what she says it's definitely well-written and always an interesting read. I had no idea that young lady was so un-afraid to share her true emotions online but it's true and I am glad I happened to check out her account on random.

I'll be back tomorrow night, and this time with a proper review.

Act of Vengeance

Act of Vengeance (a.k.a. RAPE SQUAD) (1974)

Runtime: 90 minutes

Directed by: Bob Kelljan

Starring: Jo Ann Harris, Peter Brown, Jennifer Lee, Lisa Moore

From: AIP

Yep, I watched a movie on Netflix that also has the title of Rape Squad. No I am not a disgusting pervert. This is actually a rape revenge fantasy sort of thing that is also exploitation. I heard about the film on a podcast and its wacky elements made it worthy enough for a watch.

The plot isn't too complex: A quintet of lovely young ladies end up getting raped by a hockey mask wearing rapist who wears a jumpsuit and forces the women to sing... Jingle Bells. Yes. They feel that the police isn't doing enough to try and stop the guy. So they decide to form a Rape Squad that provides support for future ladies in the nameless city who get assaulted and they also go after people who they find out do these sorts of things.

Yes, years before Michael Myers and Jason Voorhees, there's a bad guy who wears a jumpsuit and who dons a hockey mask. Interesting. The first half hour is rather uncomfortable to watch. Sure, that's the point, and they did it well. You not only see a few rapings from the bad guy, but you also see the troubles that the main lady Linda (Harris) has with the police, who don't seem as interested in the case as she feels they should be. After she meets up with four other victims they decide to form the Rape Squad and believe it or not some funny moments happen.

I mean, how can you not laugh at how they find another rapist and they decide to trash his apartment, knock him into his beer can pyramid, then tie him up and pour blue dye onto his genitals so that he's marked? Or how they take off the shirt of an obscene caller they find... and he's a big fat old guy, so they make fun of his man boobs? Or their dealings with Percy the Pimp, who they see slapping around one of his ho's? And heck, they start off by training in karate and they learn from a cougar who is a karate expert and yet makes Bruce Lee kung-fu noises whenever she fights, and she is the leader of those ladies on most of their adventures. See what I mean about the LOL factor?

Sure, the acting is bad in general and at times you'll feel skeeved out. But, it is still a female empowerment sort of film (even though it's exploitative at the same time and you'll see plenty of nudity) so you should watch it as it's an oddity that is worth seeing if you enjoy the perverse.

I'll be back tomorrow night with Twitter stories revolving around a pair of celebrities... one of them deceased.