Book Reviews @ The Temple

The Colour of Magic by Terry Pratchett– Soo… can you believe I’ve never read any Pratchett? I listened to this, of course, but I find that to be a fantastic choice. The book is so snarky and british, it can only be read by a british voice. If I had read it, I would have been using a british accent in my head. The book is quite funny, quite fun, though it falls into two distinct halves for me. The first half I think is utterly fantastic. Laugh out loud (literally) funny in multiple places (the circle suddenly closed.  The circle suddenly expanded.  HA!), a genuinely interesting world and set of characters – and this with 27 years of intervening fiction to steal the ideas. I was really enjoying it. Then, after they escaped the Wyrmberg, things went tits up. All of a sudden the book just says “they went and did a bunch of stuff.” For serious. And then I feel like I’m in media res, and I have no idea what’s up. It loses its charm and I lost the story. Frankly I think the story gets too big too quickly. This is a problem in a lot of fantasy (both, oddly, in written fiction and in D&D campaigns, I find) – things become grand too easily. Third level characters (or their equivalent random joes in fiction) do not quickly become involved in celestial battles. It was still fun, but I just thought it got out of control. There’s a whole lot (like 30!) of books in the series, I’ll keep going until I get bored, I’m hopeful it will get back to its charm.

The Light Fantastic by Terry Pratchett – Ok, second Discworld book. More of the same of the first. Maybe a little bit less funny. The plot was just as convoluted, which isn’t a good thing. Kind of hard to follow, on audio. It was fine and entertaining and amusing. Just overly complicated.

Equal Rites by Terry Pratchett – And here’s another. This one had a good idea. In this world only men can be wizards, only women can be witches. Then a girl is born a wizard, whoops! It’s a cute idea, the grandmother character (a witch) is entertaining. But it never really comes together all that well. It’s not bad, it certainly has it’s funny moments. Something about these books aren’t blowing me away. But I keep listening, as they are very easy listening. So it’s not like they are so bad I can’t stand it, they aren’t really bad at all, just not all that good.

Mort by Terry Pratchett – This was a bit of an uptick, at least for a while. It’s the story of a young boy, not really good at much, who becomes Death’s apprentice. Another cute idea, and the first half is pretty fun. What’s good about the books, the silly irreverance and general perspective, is certainly evident through the first half. But, inevitably, the book becomes more concerned with the details of its plot than the lightness of its spirit, and becomes kind of boring.

Movie Reviews @ The Temple

Kind of a huge backlog here. I guess I was avoiding putting anything on the blog. Silly, eh?

Waiting for “Superman” – I think everyone has heard of this, it was big last year. A documentary about the public school system. It’s pretty depressing, not surprisingly. In addition to a lot of information, it also follows a few kids. Kids in shitty situations trying to get into better situations. They all go to one of these lotteries where 1000 kids try to get 100 spots at a school. The end of the movie shows them all waiting for results, and it’s fucking heartbreaking. Honestly one of the hardest things I’ve had to watch in a while. I’ve never been in that position, watching my future determined by a random drawing, it’s awful. The movie is very good though. There are things I’ve never heard of too. This idea that kids get put on “tracks”. A good kid, or a bad kid, gets his or her schedule set in his or her group. So kids who don’t do great get put in the not great group. And get put with the not great kids. Taught by the not great teachers. Given the not great opportunities. So what do they do? Not great! And so they fit in their group, and it all goes down the shitter. I guess this has existed for a long time, and though it’s nominally illegal now, it still happens. I assume it happened when I was in school? But maybe being in honors/ap type stuff insulates you from that by explicitly putting you in the smart kid classes. The mere concept of this thing kind of blows my mind. The conclusion of the movie is largely the common conclusion these days – charters and “experimental” schools. I’m not 100% on board with that theory, though. Not that I don’t think those schools are great, they are sometimes awesome. I would love for every school to be like that school in the movie. What hasn’t been explained to me is – is that possible? How hard (in money, or people) is it to make that school for that # of students? Now multiply that by the number of students in the country. Can we do that? Maybe we can, I honestly don’t know, but it does seem fishy. And secondly, these students in these special charters, here you have to fill out applications and go to lotteries and take 3 buses to get to school - they aren’t normal kids, and they don’t have normal parents. Maybe charters succeed because the students who go to them are motivated and their parents are supportive. I need someone to take many random groups of students across the country, force them to go to these alt schools, and see what happens. What happens when their parent isn’t willing to take 3 jobs then come home and read to them every night? What happens when the student doesn’t dream of their career path at age 8? I’m not so sure, I’m afraid the answer isn’t a happy one. I’d love to be wrong.

Catfish – Well how the hell am I supposed to review this? The whole point of this movie, well not the whole point, but a big part of the point, is to know nothing about the movie before you watch it. So, I guess I’ll say nothing about the plot? At all? I’ll say this much, it’s supposed to be a documentary. Watching it, the obvious question is whether it really is. The story seems ridiculously convenient. It’s a pretty crazy story to begin with, but i guess crazy stories happen in life. But to be just in so many right places at right times to film it is very peculiar. I’ll say this, if it’s fake, jesus christ good acting from Angela. If it’s real, it’s rather sad and borders on exploitive. But if it’s real, I think it is honest enough that I don’t necessarily feel bad for watching it, it’s not cruel hearted. But maybe it’s fake, and bothering to write a review of a fake movie is annoying. Not sure. If I didn’t go on the internet, I would say 95% it’s fake. People are so insistent, it drags me closer to 50/50. I still lean fake though.

The Gamers: Dorkness Rising – Jesus christ that was bad. A D&D friend recommended this to me. I don’t know if he was drunk or high (actually I do, he was a little drunk), but it’s horrible. The idea is a gaming group, and they kind of LARP their adventure, a little intertwined with their real lives. But it’s not good in any way. It’s low budget, so all the effects and costumes and acting and filming are bad. Presumably that would be ok if the ideas were good, but they really aren’t. It’s largely just worthless. There are some funny ideas. But they aren’t really. They are basically just the kind of ideas that we (we being people who play D&D) have all had while playing. And those games can be god damn hilarious, laugh my ass off, nearly pee myself funny. But, unfortunately, I recognize that it’s just not that funny out of context. And the ideas in this movie aren’t even as funny as mine, and fall completely flat in a movie. Bleh.

Tangled – Pretty fun disney movie, maybe the best in a while. Like all modern disney movies, it struggles against nostalgia. Nothing will ever be as good as the big 4, I think. The music certainly is always nowhere near par. Again, like all the modern ones, the music is much too poppy. But it is fun, the horse is great character. The adventure is entertaining to watch.

127 Hours - Yikes. Very good movie, beautiful scenery, amazing story. Certainly if it wasn’t true, you’d think it was kind of silly, no way that could be. The fact that it’s true makes the movie a bit of an experience. Having any connection to outdoorsey rock climby type stuff (though obviously never of that extent or spirit) makes it all the more impactful. James Franco does a great job. His biggest problem as an actor seems to be his never ending smirk, his ultimate laid backness that makes it seems like he just doesn’t give a shit about anything. But here he comes right up against the face of it and gets out alive, and he does that story justice. Very cool.

Harry Potter 7 Part 1 – Zzzzzz. Huh? What? Oh, sorry, I fell asleep just thinking about this movie. What a boring fucking movie. It’s like what everyone complained about lord of the rings – hours and hours of walking. Jesus christ, we get it, you jump from place to place and hide and search for stuff. But christ, did we really need a 2 and a half hour movie about “they go on the run, they have a little spat, they get a couple of objects”?? I’ll say – for the second to last time – that I loved the first book, liked 2 3 and 4, disliked 5, hated 6, but was convinced to like 7 by Jim Dale’s fantastic reading (the only one I listened to on audio). The movies I’ve always found pretty boring. Kind of entertaining, but lacking the only thing I liked about the early books – the charm. This movie, though, jeez, I really don’t know what people see in it. It just went on and on and nothing happened. I get they had to stretch it to make it 2 movies, cuz maybe it didn’t fit into 1, but why stretch to 2.5 hours?? Boring.

Sorcerer’s Apprentice – Holy crap, I really liked this movie! I’m not saying it was genius or anything, but I totally enjoyed it. The magic effects are some of the best I’ve ever seen. There’s a lot of ways to do magic. Harry Potter has a sad tendency to do it too sparsely and when it does it it looks like a star wars blaster battle instead of a magic battle. A lot of movies do it sparsely, honestly, cuz its probably expensive and hard to make look good. The only thing good about In The Name of the King movie a few years ago was the amazing teleportation effect, still the best I’ve ever seen. This movie does it all really well. From the silly flail your arms around to “form” the magic, to the symbols and shapes, to the CG of the effects themselves, I really think it was all really good. The rest of the movie is just average, of course. The plot can be predicted from the beginning. The acting is acceptable and no better. The main kid is kind of annoying, I get how people would hate him, but I don’t mind. Nicolas Cage’s horrendous cheesy acting actually fits in a way it hasn’t since the 90s. He goes over the top a couple times, but it’s pretty ok. The bad guy is good, the Criss Angel rip off is hilarious cuz I hate criss angel, the girlfriend is hot, it all works! Some of it was bad, “the prime merlinian” is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. Along with “sorcerer of the 777th order” and a few other idiotic stuff. And I reeeeeeally wish they wouldn’t try to inject a scientific explanation to magic. Then again, the way that comes around in the end is cool. I don’t know, shocks me to death, I was sure this movie was flaming poop on a stick, but I totally dug it.

Gone With The Wind – Yeah, so I had never seen this. It’s… ok. Granted, it’s not made for me. I can see why people who want this kind of movie would like it. It’s very grand, epic, sprawling. Big sets, big costumes, big acting, big context. The big problem with the movie is every single character in it is a horrible person. The only exception is the friend, and she’s so pathetic that it makes it hard to watch. So I hate everyone, I don’t care if they die or love or hate. Scarlett especially can get trampled by a horse and I can’t imagine feeling sympathy. It’s a very hard thing to tell a story about an insufferable brat who only wants what she can’t have and uses every one in every way to get it. It’s doable, I guess, I can’t think of an example right now. I’m sure it’s been done. I’m digging The Borgias on showtime. That is filled top to bottom with unlikeable people. But it being historical and about murder and intrigue is way more interesting than a selfish dumbass who can’t get the husband she wants. Meh.

Brothers Grimm – Kinda boring. Sad, because there’s nothing really wrong with the movie. Some meh CG, but basically up to par. It feels, more than anything, like a Terry Gilliam adventure movie. Not as british in its humor, but the costumes and the world feel like that kind of fantasy. But in the end I really didn’t feel the need to pay much attention as I did other stuff. It’s a good background movie, I guess? Hey, I just googled, it IS a Terry Gilliam movie!

MacGruber – The netflix disc didn’t work. I take this as a sign from the one true god, your personal lord and savior, jesus mahogany christ, that this movie is not worth 2 hours. I sent it back and didn’t put it back on the queue.

Machete – Ummm… so I put this as 3 stars on netflix, I’m not sure why. I guess people know the story of this, right? Rodriguez (and tarantino) made the grindhouse movies, in between there was a trailer for this fake movie Machete. People loved the trailer way more than the movies (a fair assessment, grindhouse was shit), so they made it into a real movie. It’s danny trejo being a badass, choppin’ dudes in half, for 2 hours. Oh, and jessica alba’s ass. That’s pretty much the whole of it. It’s not any better or worse than you think. Can’t think of a reason that I gave it 3 stars. When’s Netflix going to get a “meh” # of stars?

The Fighter – The weirdest thing about me giving Machete 3 stars is that I also gave The Fighter 3 stars. It is without a doubt a better movie. But I don’t really care any more about it. It’s just another boxer movie. Underdog story. I guess it’s cool that it’s a true story. But it’s still the same story. Some good acting, a lot of family drama. But not really amazing, I’m not totally sure why it got such accolades. Christian Bale got all skinny and acted like a wacked out addict. That’s cool. But somehow it still feels 3 stars. Weird.

Logan’s Run – I had never seen this! It’s pretty good. It has the trappings of an old movie, of course. But holds up better than I would have guessed. I like a good distopia, as is well documented. There’s not much more to say about it, it’s good, I should have seen it earlier.

The Hangover – Maybe more surprising than Logan’s Run or Gone With the Wind – I hadn’t seen this yet! I just never got around to it. Everyone said it was so fantastic, I just couldn’t imagine how a silly movie about dudes getting drunk in vegas could be that great. It is pretty fun though. Not like blow my mind best comedy in 10 years fun. But definitely hilarious parts, maybe the funniest movie of last year fun? The structure is pretty entertaining, not directly seeing any of the wild night, just the results and retellings. The humor manages to be more than just dick and fart jokes. Not that it’s high class, but who wants high class humor, this is funny humor, so that’s great. Not so sure about the sequel. Sure, this one convinced me, it was funny, but how much more can they go to that well? But hey, maybe they found a different well.

Clash of the Titans – Meh, not that I expected much of this, but I didn’t get much. Ran around, stabbed things, made loud noises. Kraken got released, etc etc. It’s big budget, very flashy, all that. Seems like it should be enjoyable just for that. But I mostly half paid attention, oh well.

CJ7 – This is a movie by that Stephen Chow guy. I like his movies, I really like Shaolin Soccer and Kung Fu Hustle. They are lots of fun, have a silly sense of humor, and cool ninja fighting. This one is about a kid who finds this little alien. It’s kind of a fun kiddy movie. It does have some very very small amount of ninja stuff. But it’s not really very good. The kid stuff isn’t fun enough, the ninja stuff isn’t barely there, the kid himself of annoying. Oh well, go back and watch Shaolin Soccer if you want this kind of movie.

Despicable Me – Fun, I guess. Kind of an average dreamworks movie. Sad, they don’t make BAD movies, some of them are pretty good. But they do live in a pretty big shadow. This one is cute, it’s sweet, it’s funny. I don’t need to see it again, I don’t think you need to run out to get it, but if it’s around, it will be a good time.

Predators – Man, why wasn’t this awesome? Nerd-dom was so excited when Robert Rodriguez announced this. It had the recipe for awesome. I loved Aliens, because it had so many people to kill. A cast of characters, with different violent skills and personalities is fun. They can get picked off, so you can see cool fights with cool deaths, but the story can keep going. This movie SHOULD have been that. I mean, adrian brody was obviously an awful choice. But besides that it seemed like it should have been a lot of manly man fun. But it was mostly boringly boring fun. Not bad, I still gave it 3 on netflix, I guess, but it’s been a few days now, and I can’t think of much that I really liked about it.

Percy Jackson: The Lightning Thief – Not worth the time. I love greek mythos. But I’m moderately familiar with it, so nothing in this movie was interesting! Kind of a problem with God of War at times too. The cool thing about these young adult fantasy books is being introduced to all the stuff about the world. Creatures and magic and rules and etc. But this is all stuff I’m familiar with. Best case scenario, it’s an awesome realization of creatures and magic I know about. Worst case scenario it’s a boring rehashing of stories that have already been told. Closer to the latter than the former, I’m sad to say.

Black Swan – Boo. What a waste of a movie. Look, you can’t just make a movie to be weird and that’s enough. She’s a wacko, I get it. She’s a wacko from the beginning to the end. She gets wackiER, but she’s still a wacko. This is supposed to be a suspenseful thriller –there’s neither of those things! It’s clear she’s crazy, so there’s no suspense about what is true and because none of it’s true there’s no thrills. Why the hell should I give a shit what’s going to happen to this girl if half the time she will shake her head and it will end up being a hallucination? The only way this kind of thing can work is if we don’t know she’s crazy, and that train sailed years ago preceding a string of movies with an untrustworthy narrator (and by narrator, I just mean whosever perspective we are seeing things through). There’s just no reason to care. Plus, bee tee dubs, skinny ass ballerinas moving their grotesque alien skinny ass bodies where you can see their shoulder blades and, I’m pretty sure, their kidneys, are even grosser than people peeling their own skin off. Didn’t know that before this movie, now I do. So, I guess it gave me that.

Bad Lieutenant – Pppt. This is an older movie, Harvey Keitel is a corrupt cop. He goes around doing corrupt things. Stealing from criminals, demanding sexual stuff from stopped motorists, doing lots of drugs, etc. There’s an overarching story with his gambling on some games that are probably famous between the mets and the dodgers. And then some stuff about an attack on a nun. But the term “arch” is used loosely. He’s just a bad guy who does bad stuff. It’s more of a window into him doing bad stuff than a story. I don’t think it’s all that interesting, really. I guess I should be pleased with Keitel doing a good job, but it doesn’t seem like that big a deal to be a shitty guy for an hour and a half. The nun thing is nearly an afterthought, though it makes for a slightly interesting ending.

Resident Evil: Afterlife – Right, well, that was a piece of crap. Can you believe they made CG nacho cheese dogs that looked worse than the original nacho cheese dogs from the first movie? Buncha crap. I seem to remember there being a couple cool fight scenes, but they obviously didn’t stick with me.

Wall Street – Never saw this, needed to watch it so I could watch the sequel. Maybe it made more sense in its time. Now it’s just a story about a douche who gets all high on success, then realizes he’s a bastard and switches sides just in time. Yeah, it was reflecting that mindset that was prevalent in the 80s (and hasn’t exactly died down). I was hoping it would have interesting reflections on today, but it just seemed kind of average. Maybe we are too abused by real life financial assholes to be shocked by it happening in a movie, dunno.

Oregano

Fuzzbucket

 

Rock Star

 

Bad Ass

 

Lover of Baby Food

BK Photo Bomb!

 

Drumsticks

 

Prairie Dog

 

Too old for this shit

 

Destroyer of Worlds

The Best

College Humor: Troopers

Pretty damn funny.

Movie Reviews @ The Temple

The King’s Speech – So this won an awful lot of awards, huh? It is a pretty good movie, although… not that good. Maybe I’m being a bit contrarian (shocker). It’s still very good. It’s certainly a pretty interesting story. I do have an odd reaction to the reality of the story. My first instinct is hey that’s amazing truth. My second larger instinct is, uhh… so what? So a royal guy can’t speak well.Meanwhile, in the background, some of the most amazing moments of the 20th century are happening. Hell, Churchill is a side character. But I get it, this royal guy was more than that to the people, and that can certainly be a very important thing in trying times. Besides, we’ve seen WW II, sad as it is to say, there’s probably not much more story there (at least when it comes to the broad historical strokes, I’m sure there’s an infinite number of little stories). Anyway, everyone does an outstanding job, the movie looks great. All that stuff is thumbs up. But there is something missing that doesn’t make it amazing for me. I have no trouble saying it’s great, but it does not leave me feeling like some of the amazing movies of the past few years. I’m thinking Slumdog, or the Wrestler, hell even visual treats like Sunshine or 300. This movie was good, but I don’t ever need to see it again, it doesn’t reach that upper level. I’m not saying it doesn’t for others, just not for me.

30 Days of Night: Dark Days – This is another movie based on the same 30 Days of Night comic series. I quite like the series (though it never gets anywhere close to as good as the first set). This is kind of the same. The first movie wasn’t really very good, but it was good enough to enact a story I really like, so I liked it. This is a less good enactment of less good source material, so it’s less good. But still, I think I probably liked it better than most people would.

Gasland – Yikes. Documentary about how natural gas mining (via this “fracking” technique where they bust open the ground to get at the gas) is pretty effed up. I hear now that people are thinking it might actually cause earthquakes. I write this a few days after the big one in japan, so I can certainly see that having some impact. But this movie is about the polution of ground water. People who can light their kitchen faucets on fire due to the gas content. People getting sick. Environments getting fucked. It’s pretty miserable. Like many of these things, I get angry, but I do nothing. It will continue. Until maybe it stops and they do something else shitty. Very cynical, I know. But through a combination of feeling there’s nothing I can do, and knowing that I don’t do those few things, that require great effort, that I can do – I’m left kinda frustrated about it. The movie itself is fine. The narrator’s voice is ridiculous, I think he thinks he’s batman. The filming is kind of stupid. I think he was going for a gritty handheld thing, but that means he’s using crap cameras half the time. It’s effing 2010, there’s no such thing as crap cameras.  50 bucks get you HD, stop screwing around with this grainy crap. But besides that stuff it’s fine. It gets you the info, it’s obviously biased toward its thesis, but I’m pretty sure I’m on their side, so that doesn’t much bother me. It’s worth watching, you’ll be pissed, but it’s probably best to know what’s going on, especially if you live near any of these natural gas shales (I’m looking at you, Colorado family members).

A-Team – Oops, I never reviewed this. Not that I think it’s important that I do, it’s not. But in 3 years when I search my blog to find out if I’ve seen it, I want to remember not to watch it again. I mean, it’s not all that bad. It’s just a big ball of what you’d expect. Booms and bangs, stupid jokes, flying tanks. You know, the standard.

From Paris With Love – On the other hand, make sure I never see this again. What a piece of crap. Face/Off… is that the only thing Travolta has ever done that’s worthwhile? I guess I never saw Saturday Night Fever or Grease, so maybe those get a pass. But what else? Seriously. That dumb fucking subway heist movie? Dianetics: The Movie? The baby movies? Ok seriously, what else? I’m resorting to IMDB now. Swordfish – that had the line “not everything ends the way you think it should”. Those are the only redeeming 5 seconds of that garbage. Oh right, Pulp Fiction, that’s a good one. Aaaand, that’s it. Ok, 4 movies, tops, he’s ever done, that are remotely watchable. Well, you can’t call him inconsistent, because this movie sucks. He sucks. Is that supposed to be acting? Yelling a lot? Trying to pretend you are a bad ass? He has 5 seconds (is that a theme?) that are kind of Bourne-ish that’re neat. Besides that…. yeah, nothin’

What Pi Sounds Like

Huh. This is either amazing, or the nerd equivalent of numerology bullshit, not sure. Seems kinda awesome though.

Literal Dead Island Trailer

A lot has been done with the Dead Island trailer since it’s release. Minecraft thing was ok, remixes were ok. Also a lot of inane discussion on whether it will be a good game or not (sneak preview: no one has any fucking idea. stop guessing). But this is pretty funny.

The Black Mamba

If I said Kobe Bryant, Nike, and commercial, you would be forgiven if you didn’t think “sign me up for a 5 minute youtube video.” But what if I also said Robert Rodriguez, Danny Trejo, and Bruce WIllis? Ehhh? It’s pretty funny.

Flight of the Bumblebee on Beer Bottles

Awesome.

Ultra Combos

These guys are kind of great. This video is live action SF IV style combos. They have a few fighty things on their youtube channel, seems pretty good.

Dead Island Trailer

Holy fucking shit, this is the most amazing video game trailer I’ve ever seen.

Minecraft Fan Film

This is pretty awesome. Makes me sad I haven’t had the time to play minecraft in a few weeks though. And hey, for the first time in the history of the universe, one of those obnoxious links to other videos at the end of youtube videos was actually worthwhile!

Movie Reviews @ The Temple

The Dungeon Masters – This movie is really very bad, but it’s also very very sad. When I first heard about it – a documentary about people who play D&D – I was excited. There’s many things this movie could be. It could be an interesting history of D&D and look at people who play it. It could be a humanizing story that makes people who don’t play D&D see players as normal other human beings. It could be a complete mockery of these people, which it almost is. And it could be a painfully honest look at these people, which it tries to be. It does not choose normal people. I play D&D, or at least I have as recently as a year ago, and I would still if I had time, I wish I could. Yet, I have a job. A girlfriend. A nice place to live. I may not be mr. social, but I can usually be a normal person. The people they choose are not normal. They aren’t not normal because they play D&D, they are not normal people, who happen to play D&D. I know LARPers, I don’t do it, I think it’s kind of weird, but I know them. And yes they are a bit odd, but they have jobs, they are married, have a house, a kid, and I honestly enjoy their company. No one enjoys the people in the movie, they are disconnected from society. There’s a guy with no life, wants to be a writer, has no other income, sits around and plays games. A guy who is power mad because he’s a DM. And lastly a woman with a truly pathetic white trash kind of life, who likes to dress up as a drow. This movie had an opportunity, in theory, to explore these people in a meaningful way. There is a moment where they have a chance. The woman is talking with her boyfriend, in extremely practical pragmatic nerdy language, about their decision to move in together. The boy is saying its logical, even if they break up. She says she doesn’t think that will happen. He says nothing. She doesn’t look at him. She’s “focusing” on her computer. She has that awkward, desperate feigned apathy. No, not apathy, apathy would be too close to a connection with people. Instead she is faking distance, as if she’s so busy with her laptop, she hasn’t yet considered that her boyfriend didn’t respond to that. There was a chance there, a real insight in to this type of person. I know that type of person. I am that type of person. My friends are that type of person, and coworkers. At least some of them, to some extent. I know exactly what it is to “focus” on something when I’m ignoring something awkward or hard or threatening (emotionally). I know that look. This movie pauses on that look, and seems like it wants to expose what it’s like to be that person. But it passes, mostly unexplored. Each of these three people are sad. The woman was abused previously. The writer has no opportunities, and no ambition to achieve anything not in his narrow scope. The gamemaster is nearly comical in his need for control. I think ultimately no one gains from this movie. These people don’t gain insight on themselves. A non gamer sees only freaks, confirming their every preconception of gamers. A gamer sees a horrible representation of them and people like them. An introspective person sees a missed opportunity. It’s really a waste. At it’s worst it is hurtful, and it’s best, it’s a failure.

The Expendables – Well crap, it’s been a while since I actually saw this. My feeling is that it was fun. Not good by any means, but entertaining. Honestly much more so than I expected, seemed like it would be crap. But the relationship between the various crew members is pretty good. Everyone plays themselves, pretty much – stallone, rourke, jet li, statham – they all play the guy they all play in every movie. But that’s ok, cram them all in there, have lots of explosions, an honestly shocking amount of gore, and you got yourself a decent way to spend an evening.

Legion – This is a movie from a couple years ago about angels. It’s an action movie, slightly horror-ish, it’s the apocalypse, shit done went bad, lots of shooting. Not good, obviously. Some of it is okay, it didn’t offend me, but it’s not good. The acting by the son is particularly horrendous, though in his defense, he was given the shittiest lines amongst a hefty amount of shitty lines. Not much else to say about it, kind of like from dusk till dawn, except angels instead of vampires (and to be clear, only 1 is actually in angel form, its basically just monsters), much fewer tits, absolutely no humor, and not even as good of action. So, yeah, just go watch FDTD instead.

The Color of Magic – This is a bbc thing based on the Terry Pratchett book. It’s not really that interesting. I’ve already written a review of the book (though maybe haven’t posted it), and the basic idea is its pretty funny, but the plot is mostly nonsensical. Sadly, this movie is all plot, little humor. To be fair, its pretty impossible to do snarky british omniscient narrator in a movie. You can have a voice over, and they do, but it’s just not the same. In much the same way that the hitchhiker’s movie failed to capture the humor of the book, this does as well, but much more so, I would say. It’s not that it’s particularly badly acted, written, or special effected (for a low budget thing), it just has almost 0% of the charm of the book, and even the book lost me half way through. Sorry, not really worth the time.

Blood Into Wine – Documentary about the lead singer from Tool making a winery in northern arizona. I had seen him before on WLTV. He’s not really a likeable guy. He has this douche emo persona, I don’t know if it’s real or an act, but either way it’s obnoxious. Doesn’t really make me want to drive to Jerome and try his wine. Really, everyone in the movie is pretty annoying. The head winemaker seems like an okay guy, if a big hippy. But most everyone is unpleasant. Yet the movie is kind of cool. You see a full season of wine making, you hear about a lot of the little bs issues you run into trying to up and make a winery. All that stuff is pretty interesting. So, it’s kind of a good movie, just filled with unlikeable people is all.

Exit Through the Gift Shop – Hrm. Street art is such a pain in the ass. I can’t say you can’t do art. But I can say that any random asshole who can only give his shit life some semblance of worth by spray painting his asshole name on some wall is a douche. As it happens, it looks like most of the talented street artists are douches too. Shepherd Fairy? Anyone with silver hair is a douche. Unless your 70, then you get a pass. Choosing a wall because it “feels” right? Douche. Making an animal stand around on display around covered in paint? You’re a douche. This french guy is nearly the dictionary definition of douche. And his BS pop/street shit is the reason I’ll probably never accept modern art. The crap I saw in a real art museum in Boulder a month ago looks no better or worse than this guys’ crap. But whatever, it’s art, some people think that includes putting clown makeup, a mickey mouse hat, or paint sparkles on any random celebrity. So, I can’t say you can’t do art, cuz it’s art, and I can’t even say if it IS art. Even though it leaves open the possibility that a douche will scribble ‘jackhole was here’ (I’m paraphrasing) on the side of my trashcan. But I can absolutely call you a douche.

Antichrist – the fuck? This is an absolutely serious contender for the worst movie I’ve ever seen. The premise is a couple loses their child through negligence, the woman is having a hard time recovering. Her husband, a therapist, tries to fix her himself, eventually resorting to a sort of psychological rehab at a cabin in the woods. Then shit goes bonkers. To be fair, shit started bonkers, the second image of the movie is WIllem DeFoe’s dick (stunt dick?) “artfully” banging his wife. It’s not quite hard core porn, but it is more than soft. But the woods things are extra bonkers. Crazy violence, disgusting imagery. And, worst of all, it really really thinks it has a point. There are a lot of shit violent movies out there. Hostel is “torture porn”, violence for violence. It’s horrendous, but it’s not really offensive, it exists only for that purpose. Saw is a step worse, because it thinks it’s fancy. It thinks it has something to say. It doesn’t ,of course, it’s a pretentious mask to give it a reason to make Saw 46: In Which You See A Vag And Someone Chews Their Own Ear Off. But this is a whole new level of bullshit. This movie is so up its own ass. It thinks it’s this thought provoking masterpiece on despair, PTSD, and I guess mental illness. It seems to include the supernatural, though that’s not exactly clear. Most annoyingly, I am positive that this movie thinks its gore is to “shock” you. To wake you up. And while I realize I’m giving this movie way more credit than it is due, merely by virtue of the length of the review, it is just so bad, it needed to be said. Don’t watch this, not out of curiosity, I’m sure it’s not really willem defoe’s dick, not to see how bad it is, it doesn’t deserve a single netflix click.

Law Abiding Citizen – Man, this movie started out great. I was really digging it. A guy’s family is murdered, after being denied justice he decides to do it himself. You are totally on board with that plan, as he’s killing murderers and horrible people. The movie switches, he really becomes a wackaloon and takes his “cause” way overboard. At one point I’m pretty sure he kills the hairdresser of the lady who works at the DMV who gave a license to the guy who road a bus next to another guy who was stocking shelves at the safeway on the same day that the murderer’s 3rd cousin bought a snickers bar. That might be an exaggeration, but only slightly. Still, the crazy in and of itself isn’t necessarily bad. Maybe it’s a harvey dent thing, the world treats him so badly, that he goes crazy. The problem is he really becomes a supervillain. Not just any ole; like super crazy, super genius, super elaborate supervillain, and it just becomes kinda dumb. It’s actually kind of like the Saw movies, thinking back to the last review, where he just has every little thing planned and is some kind of omniscient super being. But that’s dumb, and it completely ruins the movie. It all comes around, has the only resolution it can have, but by then it lost me. I just feel like they could have gone in a more realistic direction, even with the craziness, and been much better for it.

Eye tracking during a movie

This is a really cool idea. There’s no reason to watch the whole thing, just skip through and get the idea, but it is very neat. I’m sure crazy interesting for filmmakers.

Sword Dance and Shadowgraph

Hoooleee shit, that is awesome.

Thought of You

As my available daily internet time approaches zero, I find myself more and more picky when it comes to little internet videos. But something about this one works for me. Maybe I’ve watched too much So You Think You can Dance. But there’s something really beautiful about their movement.

Past Pictures

I love this idea. Especially ones involving construction or other big changes.

Live Action Pokemon Intro

This is so dorky and bad, it’s really charming.

Best Ebay Ad Ever

Probably won’t be up for long, I don’t know how long ebay keeps old auctions up. But it’s pretty damn funny (make sure you click full description).

Walk

Like an Egyptian.