I’m breaking some serious rules here. I’m currently at work and completely bored out of my gourd (just in time for the Fall!!). I was going to post a gourd image, but forget it. People go crazy over those things!!!! I got scared. Anyway, I’ve already finished my work for the day and I have 5 hours to go. What better time to get some blogging in! I just know I’m going to get canned.
Let’s talk TV.
Anyone catch this week’s Heroes? It was the perfect mixture of hokey, bad acting, and amazing plot surprises. I was happy. And William Katt made an appearance again, even if it were simply a photo in a newspaper article. Oh, Billy, you’ll always be my Greatest American Hero. It's criminal you got offed in the first episode.
I’m also proud to report that Pushing Daisies is back on the air with Season #2!!! Seriously, one of my most favorite shows of all time. If you haven’t watched it yet, don’t start now. Well, I guess you could, but I suggest you watch the first 9 episodes of Season 1. You won’t get lost like with…well, Lost if you don’t, but it would certainly help. Oh, and if you haven't yet seen Lee Pace in The Fall, you really need to re-prioritize.
Tim and Eric Awesome Show Great Job just wrapped up the Season 3 finale last week with Brownie Mountain. Is it just me or are the seasons getting progressively shorter and shorter? It ravages me on the kitchen table and is out the door before I can even get out an “I love you,” leaving me a sweaty and confused mess. Come home soon, Tim and Eric. Come home soon.
But enough about my love life. Let’s talk movies!
Okay, as promised, here is what I thought of the rest of the films I saw while I was fighting off the SARS virus.
I’m going to start with The Mummy: Something About a Dragon King or Something Like That. Poop sandwich. The first 2 movies were adventurous and fun. This was not. That’s all I can really say about it. Great idea. Sad execution. Having another actress play Rachel Weiss’s role ruined it for me. I can’t stand when they do that. Just do what they did in the Jaws series when Roy Scheider didn’t come back and say she died of a heart attack in between films. I mean, something like 20 years had gone by between 2 and 3, so it could have been done (and yet, everyone except their kid and, of course, Rachel Weiss, miraculously looked exactly the same. Must have been the Pearl Cream they picked up in Shangrila). There. Problem solved. And no one had to exhaust their suspension of disbelief, because God knows we needed it with this bullshit. I’d go into the plot, but what do you possibly need to know? Everyone is bored with their non-mummy fighting lives. Wouldn’t you know it, a mummy comes to life. He has magic. He’s Chinese. He turns into a dragon. Slapstick genius Brendan Frasier and family fight him, thus giving their lives purpose once more and bringing them all closer together. The end.
Rachel Weiss
Not Rachel Weiss
Best movie moment: Yetis. Anything that includes the cousins of the great Florida Skunkape can’t be all bad. Except this movie. It would need about a dozen more Snowmen, and handful of Snipes, and a whole army of Chupacabras to have saved itself.
Most awkward movie moment: everything else. I haven’t scratched my head this much over a Brendan Frasier film since Monkeybone.
Since we’re loosely on the subject of Where-Are-They-Now plot devices, let’s take a look at X-Files: I Want to Believe. It was the longest episode of the X-Files I have ever seen. That’s pretty much the extent of it. Mulder is in hiding from the FBI after having been canned and made to look nuts (you can tell he’s in hiding because of his unkempt beard), Scully is some kind of brain surgeon in a religiously run hospital (you can tell a lot of time has gone by because of her long hair), and they’re both bumping uglies. Oh, Amanda Peet’s in it, too, only not naked. Already a bad mark for this flick. Aside from mentioning his AWOL sister a couple of times, this movie has absolutely nothing at all to do with the usual X-Files fair of evil aliens and cloned superhumans. It was merely a filler episode. A really long filler episode. Now that’s not to say it wasn’t at all entertaining. X-Files has a special place in my heart and it was really nice to see Agents Mulder and Scully doing what they do best (never mind that I pretty much stopped watching when the T-2000 became a regular). Though, you’d think after all these years and all the shit she’s been witness to, Dana Scully would get her head out of her ass and stop being such a God damned Doubting Thomas. They really played up to her strengths as an actual doctor, which is something they rarely did in the television series aside from using it to accentuate her stance as “the logical one,” which always kind of bugged me. Mulder was just plain, old Mulder. Not much about this guy has changed with the exception of his beard and newly admitted sex lust. I’ve always wished they’d do an X-Files/Red Shoe Diaries crossover.
Best movie moment: the return of father figure and all around awesome bald guy Agent Skinner. It happens pretty late in the film, but when he finally shows up, you just know everything is going to be all right.
Most awkward movie moment: how this episode suddenly became a movie in its final 10 minutes. So there I am, enjoying the show and wondering if Chris Carter knows how much JJ Abrams has ripped him off with Fringe, when all of a sudden the orchestra comes in and Mulder and Scully are having “a Hollywood moment.” What the fuck?!?!? It was like being tossed into ice water after getting out of a sauna. I could have done without that forced bit of nonsense.
Of course, there was that bit of awkwardness with Billy Connolly being a convicted child molesting psychic ex-priest who bleeds from his eyes. I shit you not. I couldn't make something like that up. Not that I'd really want to.
The fuck is this nonsense?!?!? Give me some aliens, damnit!!!!!!!
Oh, and speaking of Fringe and rip-offs, Jerry Bruckheimer’s The Eleventh Hour is on tonight on CBS. Oh, so is the American version of Life On Mars on ABC. Normally, I’d predict it would be a huge piece of shit if it weren’t for Harvey Keitel being in it and the success of our version of The Office. Whatever. At least Reality TV is going the way of Paris Hilton’s vajayjay.
Okay, enough digressing. Now I want to talk about a fun movie. Not a great movie by any stretch, but fun nonetheless. It’s a little known film called The Mutant Chronicles and it stars Thomas Jane, Ron Perlman with an awful brogue accent, that one scary Asian chick from Sin City, and a couple of dudes from some Guy Ritchie films. Oh, and John Malkovich is in it as, what else, an ambiguously gay, apathetic city leader. Don't be confused like was at first. This has absolutely nothing to do with the collectible figure game nor the piece of shit computer game. Me being who I am, I was desperately hoping to see some mutants with laser beams coming out of their eyes and healing factors and shit. No such luck. What I got was a movie that was cross between I Am Legend, Journey to the Center of the Earth, Doomsday, and Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. No lie.
Wrong mutants.
I have nothing really bad to say about this movie mainly because I kinda knew what to expect going in. When you jump into a pool with no water, you know you're going to walk away with a limp. A huge machine sent from another planet starts making killer mutants out of people (they’re basically really fast crazies with spikes for hands and super tough to kill). “The Ancients” or whatever seal this thing up underground and it stays there until a great war breaks the seal (as usual) and the machine picks back up where it left off. A ragtag group of Earth’s last hope, led by Hellboy and The Punisher, is assembled and journeys underground to blow the machine up. Hilarity and sword fights ensue. Did I mention Ron Perlman has a shitty brogue accent?
My only real gripe about this film is that it chronologically makes little sense. They state the amount of time that goes by during the course of the film but it never matches up with the events that take place. I don’t know, maybe time is different in the future.
Best movie moment: every sacrifice made from every character in the film. No joke. Damn near every single person in this movie sacrifices him or herself for the rest of the group, until there’s one man standing. Of course, that one man standing didn’t sacrifice shit and lived to tell the tale, so good for him. There’s also a part that had potential to be the best movie moment where Thomas Jane gets turned into half a mutant. Does he get super mutant powers? Faster? Stronger? Spike hand? Does he go head-to-head with the evil mutants as a super hybrid mutant man destroying all in his path? Nope. He gets a fucked up face, loses half his hair, and dicks around. That’s it. What a waste of perfectly good mutant mojo.
Most awkward movie moment: Every scene with John Malkovich.
Not in Mutant Chronicles, thank Christ.
Since I am at work and this mother is getting pretty lengthy, I’ll briefly talk about one more film that has absolutely no dorky qualities at all but I liked it so much I just have to blog about it: Little Manhattan. This movie not only makes you fall in love with Manhattan in a way no cornball Meg Ryan movie ever could, but it makes you fall in love with young, innocent love, too. Basically, the film follows the first pangs of love of 2 kids living in the greatest city in North America, from realizing you suddenly got the hots for someone you’ve never really “seen” that way before to the paranoia love brings turning you into a heartbroken, jealous psychopath. The only bad thing I can think of about this movie is the fact that a 10-year old boy went through the same bullshit I did in my late-20’s. That and if a kid hangs around outside a girl’s place it’s cute. If I do it, I’m looking down the barrel of stalking charges.
Best movie moment: the hand holding scene. I know, I know. I’m a fucking sap.
Most awkward movie scene: the wrestling-on-the-bedroom-floor scene. I know they’re only kids and still a few years from becoming total sex starved perverts, but that still didn’t stop me from feeling like I was an article of removed underoos away from watching a kiddie porn. Ultimate awkward. Maybe it’s just me. Still, it didn’t stop me from pining about that special, first kiss. You’ll have tons of kisses in your time, but a first only happens once. This is the part where I type *sigh* like a little, fucking girl.
Come on, that's adorable!!!
That’s about it from me for now. I should probably get back to my job. I promise I’ll write about the surprisingly boner-inducing Speed Racer in the next blog. I’ll probably do a bit about some comic books, too, since last week was insane with them. I’m due for this week’s new batch and I’m still working on last week’s. Not to mention Captain America finally finished the “The Death of Captain America” story arc that’s been going on for close to 2 years now, burying Steve Rogers and introducing the new Cap in one hell of a conspiracy plot. Hog frigging heaven, I’ll tell ya.
This post was brought to you by experimental overusage of bold font. (And I'm noticing way too many images of intimate moments. What the hell has gotten into me??)
Let’s talk TV.
Anyone catch this week’s Heroes? It was the perfect mixture of hokey, bad acting, and amazing plot surprises. I was happy. And William Katt made an appearance again, even if it were simply a photo in a newspaper article. Oh, Billy, you’ll always be my Greatest American Hero. It's criminal you got offed in the first episode.
I’m also proud to report that Pushing Daisies is back on the air with Season #2!!! Seriously, one of my most favorite shows of all time. If you haven’t watched it yet, don’t start now. Well, I guess you could, but I suggest you watch the first 9 episodes of Season 1. You won’t get lost like with…well, Lost if you don’t, but it would certainly help. Oh, and if you haven't yet seen Lee Pace in The Fall, you really need to re-prioritize.
Tim and Eric Awesome Show Great Job just wrapped up the Season 3 finale last week with Brownie Mountain. Is it just me or are the seasons getting progressively shorter and shorter? It ravages me on the kitchen table and is out the door before I can even get out an “I love you,” leaving me a sweaty and confused mess. Come home soon, Tim and Eric. Come home soon.
But enough about my love life. Let’s talk movies!
Okay, as promised, here is what I thought of the rest of the films I saw while I was fighting off the SARS virus.
I’m going to start with The Mummy: Something About a Dragon King or Something Like That. Poop sandwich. The first 2 movies were adventurous and fun. This was not. That’s all I can really say about it. Great idea. Sad execution. Having another actress play Rachel Weiss’s role ruined it for me. I can’t stand when they do that. Just do what they did in the Jaws series when Roy Scheider didn’t come back and say she died of a heart attack in between films. I mean, something like 20 years had gone by between 2 and 3, so it could have been done (and yet, everyone except their kid and, of course, Rachel Weiss, miraculously looked exactly the same. Must have been the Pearl Cream they picked up in Shangrila). There. Problem solved. And no one had to exhaust their suspension of disbelief, because God knows we needed it with this bullshit. I’d go into the plot, but what do you possibly need to know? Everyone is bored with their non-mummy fighting lives. Wouldn’t you know it, a mummy comes to life. He has magic. He’s Chinese. He turns into a dragon. Slapstick genius Brendan Frasier and family fight him, thus giving their lives purpose once more and bringing them all closer together. The end.
Rachel Weiss
Not Rachel Weiss
Best movie moment: Yetis. Anything that includes the cousins of the great Florida Skunkape can’t be all bad. Except this movie. It would need about a dozen more Snowmen, and handful of Snipes, and a whole army of Chupacabras to have saved itself.
Most awkward movie moment: everything else. I haven’t scratched my head this much over a Brendan Frasier film since Monkeybone.
Since we’re loosely on the subject of Where-Are-They-Now plot devices, let’s take a look at X-Files: I Want to Believe. It was the longest episode of the X-Files I have ever seen. That’s pretty much the extent of it. Mulder is in hiding from the FBI after having been canned and made to look nuts (you can tell he’s in hiding because of his unkempt beard), Scully is some kind of brain surgeon in a religiously run hospital (you can tell a lot of time has gone by because of her long hair), and they’re both bumping uglies. Oh, Amanda Peet’s in it, too, only not naked. Already a bad mark for this flick. Aside from mentioning his AWOL sister a couple of times, this movie has absolutely nothing at all to do with the usual X-Files fair of evil aliens and cloned superhumans. It was merely a filler episode. A really long filler episode. Now that’s not to say it wasn’t at all entertaining. X-Files has a special place in my heart and it was really nice to see Agents Mulder and Scully doing what they do best (never mind that I pretty much stopped watching when the T-2000 became a regular). Though, you’d think after all these years and all the shit she’s been witness to, Dana Scully would get her head out of her ass and stop being such a God damned Doubting Thomas. They really played up to her strengths as an actual doctor, which is something they rarely did in the television series aside from using it to accentuate her stance as “the logical one,” which always kind of bugged me. Mulder was just plain, old Mulder. Not much about this guy has changed with the exception of his beard and newly admitted sex lust. I’ve always wished they’d do an X-Files/Red Shoe Diaries crossover.
Best movie moment: the return of father figure and all around awesome bald guy Agent Skinner. It happens pretty late in the film, but when he finally shows up, you just know everything is going to be all right.
Most awkward movie moment: how this episode suddenly became a movie in its final 10 minutes. So there I am, enjoying the show and wondering if Chris Carter knows how much JJ Abrams has ripped him off with Fringe, when all of a sudden the orchestra comes in and Mulder and Scully are having “a Hollywood moment.” What the fuck?!?!? It was like being tossed into ice water after getting out of a sauna. I could have done without that forced bit of nonsense.
Of course, there was that bit of awkwardness with Billy Connolly being a convicted child molesting psychic ex-priest who bleeds from his eyes. I shit you not. I couldn't make something like that up. Not that I'd really want to.
The fuck is this nonsense?!?!? Give me some aliens, damnit!!!!!!!
Oh, and speaking of Fringe and rip-offs, Jerry Bruckheimer’s The Eleventh Hour is on tonight on CBS. Oh, so is the American version of Life On Mars on ABC. Normally, I’d predict it would be a huge piece of shit if it weren’t for Harvey Keitel being in it and the success of our version of The Office. Whatever. At least Reality TV is going the way of Paris Hilton’s vajayjay.
Okay, enough digressing. Now I want to talk about a fun movie. Not a great movie by any stretch, but fun nonetheless. It’s a little known film called The Mutant Chronicles and it stars Thomas Jane, Ron Perlman with an awful brogue accent, that one scary Asian chick from Sin City, and a couple of dudes from some Guy Ritchie films. Oh, and John Malkovich is in it as, what else, an ambiguously gay, apathetic city leader. Don't be confused like was at first. This has absolutely nothing to do with the collectible figure game nor the piece of shit computer game. Me being who I am, I was desperately hoping to see some mutants with laser beams coming out of their eyes and healing factors and shit. No such luck. What I got was a movie that was cross between I Am Legend, Journey to the Center of the Earth, Doomsday, and Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. No lie.
Wrong mutants.
I have nothing really bad to say about this movie mainly because I kinda knew what to expect going in. When you jump into a pool with no water, you know you're going to walk away with a limp. A huge machine sent from another planet starts making killer mutants out of people (they’re basically really fast crazies with spikes for hands and super tough to kill). “The Ancients” or whatever seal this thing up underground and it stays there until a great war breaks the seal (as usual) and the machine picks back up where it left off. A ragtag group of Earth’s last hope, led by Hellboy and The Punisher, is assembled and journeys underground to blow the machine up. Hilarity and sword fights ensue. Did I mention Ron Perlman has a shitty brogue accent?
My only real gripe about this film is that it chronologically makes little sense. They state the amount of time that goes by during the course of the film but it never matches up with the events that take place. I don’t know, maybe time is different in the future.
Best movie moment: every sacrifice made from every character in the film. No joke. Damn near every single person in this movie sacrifices him or herself for the rest of the group, until there’s one man standing. Of course, that one man standing didn’t sacrifice shit and lived to tell the tale, so good for him. There’s also a part that had potential to be the best movie moment where Thomas Jane gets turned into half a mutant. Does he get super mutant powers? Faster? Stronger? Spike hand? Does he go head-to-head with the evil mutants as a super hybrid mutant man destroying all in his path? Nope. He gets a fucked up face, loses half his hair, and dicks around. That’s it. What a waste of perfectly good mutant mojo.
Most awkward movie moment: Every scene with John Malkovich.
Not in Mutant Chronicles, thank Christ.
Since I am at work and this mother is getting pretty lengthy, I’ll briefly talk about one more film that has absolutely no dorky qualities at all but I liked it so much I just have to blog about it: Little Manhattan. This movie not only makes you fall in love with Manhattan in a way no cornball Meg Ryan movie ever could, but it makes you fall in love with young, innocent love, too. Basically, the film follows the first pangs of love of 2 kids living in the greatest city in North America, from realizing you suddenly got the hots for someone you’ve never really “seen” that way before to the paranoia love brings turning you into a heartbroken, jealous psychopath. The only bad thing I can think of about this movie is the fact that a 10-year old boy went through the same bullshit I did in my late-20’s. That and if a kid hangs around outside a girl’s place it’s cute. If I do it, I’m looking down the barrel of stalking charges.
Best movie moment: the hand holding scene. I know, I know. I’m a fucking sap.
Most awkward movie scene: the wrestling-on-the-bedroom-floor scene. I know they’re only kids and still a few years from becoming total sex starved perverts, but that still didn’t stop me from feeling like I was an article of removed underoos away from watching a kiddie porn. Ultimate awkward. Maybe it’s just me. Still, it didn’t stop me from pining about that special, first kiss. You’ll have tons of kisses in your time, but a first only happens once. This is the part where I type *sigh* like a little, fucking girl.
Come on, that's adorable!!!
That’s about it from me for now. I should probably get back to my job. I promise I’ll write about the surprisingly boner-inducing Speed Racer in the next blog. I’ll probably do a bit about some comic books, too, since last week was insane with them. I’m due for this week’s new batch and I’m still working on last week’s. Not to mention Captain America finally finished the “The Death of Captain America” story arc that’s been going on for close to 2 years now, burying Steve Rogers and introducing the new Cap in one hell of a conspiracy plot. Hog frigging heaven, I’ll tell ya.
This post was brought to you by experimental overusage of bold font. (And I'm noticing way too many images of intimate moments. What the hell has gotten into me??)
