Film is Pwn

Imagine a future where you will be able to send an android double to go watch terrible movies like Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan in Cop Out.  That is – sorta – the idea behind Surrogates.

In this near future sci-fi-thriller, humans live life from the comfort of their homes as their robotic stand-ins work, play, and party on their behest.  Still trying to get your head around Surrogates?  Think Avatar except no blue aliens and minus about a billion dollars in box office receipts.

The Surrogates themselves are in some cases idealized representations of humans.  Give me a robot that looks just like me except 50 pounds lighter, perfect hair, toned calves, and literal abs of steel, please!  In other instances, the Surrogate embodies nauseous role-playing.  One attractive blonde Surrogate turns out to be a fat dude living out his own fantasy and my nightmare.  Who hasn’t dreaded finally meeting Ms. Right and discovering that she’s secretly Horatio Sanz?  Just me?  *Sigh* (more…)

Meteor Apocalypse is the first film I watched from the Asylum’s sister-low-budget-studio, Faith Films.  I’ll sum up Meteor Apocalypse with two adjectives that have quite possibly never been applied in a film review: “Relieved” and “Satisfied.”

Yes, it’s a bad movie, but please let me explain: I am a Christian and thereby had a vested interest in the movie.  Most Asylum releases I sit back and enjoy the B-movie goodness as “so-bad-it’s-good.”  But this wasn’t just a B-movie, it’s a Christian B-movie!  So, Meteor Apocalypse I had a little emotional investment. 

Why do I care?  To get a perspective, imagine you’re watching a bunch of kids play T-ball.  They are running around aimlessly, falling down arbitrarily, getting distracted by passing clouds, and one is attempting to chew on the baseball rather than throw it back into the infield.  Kinda funny, right?  Not if your kid is the worst of the bunch; then it’s embarrassing. But if your kid is as good as all the other bad kids, it’s okay! (Right? Someone with kids back me up on this!) (more…)

It is snowing in my hometown of Charlotte, North Carolina.  An alien invasion does not debilitate New York City to the degree that an inch of snow shuts down Charlotte.  Charlotte’s citizenry forget how to behave when beset by fears of the white powder descending from the heavens like millions of malicious storm troopers.   (more…)

Starring: Denzel Washington, Gary Oldman, Mila Kunis, Ray Stevenson
Directed By: The Hughes Brothers

Just saw The Book of Eli, and I liked it.  It’s a post-apocalyptic film that feels like a classic Clint Eastwood Western.  (more…)

Oh, Asylum, you’ve done it again!

Princess of Mars is based on a novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs, which is allegedly the inspiration for James Cameron’s Avatar.  In fact, right on the front cover of the DVD it says, “THE CLASSIC STORY THAT INSPIRED JAMES CAMERON’S AVATAR.”  The back cover of Princess of Mars boasts in a quote without a source: “HEART-POUNDING CREATURE ACTION OF STARSHIP TROOPERS AND THE EPIC ADVENTURE OF LORD OF THE RINGS!”  I hate to call anyone or any DVD cover a liar, but how can you trust someone who tells you that Starship Troopers contained “heart-pounding creature action”? Liar!

Avatar and Princess of Mars do both feature protagonists who are strangers in a strange land that fall in love with a scantily clad alien, but that is the plot to 94.2% of movies these days.  Of course, James Cameron spends more money on a single sneeze than the entire budget of the Asylum’s Princess of Mars. (more…)

I saw Moon last night.  Not THE Moon of course, that would require looking out the window at nighttime, and I am far too timid for such a bold action. No, I refer to director Duncan Jones’ 2009 science fiction movie of the name, “Moon.” (more…)

Twisters are a tasty treat served at KFC, good to eat by fast food standards and is best when served hot.  To prevent any confusion, from this point forward the word “twister” will exclusively be used in reference to tornadoes, not the delicious KFC wrap.  Mmm, I could go for a twister right about now . . . Yes, that was talking about the wrap, there, of course, I have no desire for a tornado.  Let us try this again: From here on out, “twister” refers to tornado.  I promise. (more…)

 Back when Sky Captain was first coming out I stared at the trailers longingly. The posters called my name and in the years since the dvds have cried out to me from the shelves. Finally, at long last, I took the time to watch it. I loved and hated it. To some extent I still love what it could have been, but then reality strikes and I hate what it actually was. (more…)

I had to see Avatar. I’m not sure I had another choice in the matter. The buzz oozing from every orifice of movie goers round the world insisted upon it. The bad news is I rarely think as highly of movies with this much buzz. District 9 comes to mind.

For starters, James Cameron is talented. Very talented. He managed to bring life to a story I saw coming within the first ten minutes. He managed to make it interesting, heartwarming and very much engaging. The world was interesting and fresh, even if the story was tired. Somehow he managed to make me look past the thousand plot holes as I sat in the theater. My mind was fixated on the Na’vi and the inevitability of their story.

Visually it was pretty significant (it’s what everyone is talking about), the use of 3D mixed with live action was impressively done. The use of CGI with live action didn’t strike me as especially great or ground-breaking but I’ve seen a lot of movies so maybe that has something to do with it. Biologically I think his world had issues. For instance, why did all of his creatures seem to be carnivores despite mass quantities of jumbo size vegetation? But that’s nitpicking. The world is beautiful, fun and fairly scientifically accurate.

I hate that this film was so socially and politically charged. I like social cause movies and when it’s done well it can really be great. I think of “Hotel Rwanda” which though it wasn’t really accurate it shined a light on a grim reality; which I think is always a good thing. Avatar though didn’t shine light on a grim reality; it was preaching to the choir. The people who agreed with the message would cheer and those who didn’t would groan or get angry.

(more…)

Starring: Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Stephen Lang, Sigourney Weaver
Directed By: James Cameron

I have just witnessed what is allegedly the most expensive movie ever made, James Cameron’s gaudy, luminous follow-up to 1997’s Titanic, Avatar.  Yes, Cameron took a dozen years between releases, in part because he wanted to make Avatar and needed to wait for the technology to keep up with his vision.  What the dozen year lapse tells me is that the shiny spectacle in Avatar is way more important than other little elements like story and characters, and it shows.

The key characters are the alien race called the Na’vi who are sadly impossible for me to take seriously.  They’re giant, blue-skinned humanoid creatures with tails and long necks.  Think if Smurfette mated with Randy Johnson. If that image doesn’t conjure up what the Na’vi look like, imagine a race of blue Jar Jar Binks’. Get the picture? (more…)

Finally got around to seeing Terminator: Salvation Friday night.  This is one of the big, Summer 2009 movies that ended up on my “Maybe” list with mixed reviews and an uninspiring trailer, and I never got around to it.

All in all, I kinda liked it.  Lowered expectations might be a good thing, this is nowhere near as good as James Cameron’s original Terminator or the terrific sequel Terminator 2: Judgment Day, but fortunately far from the disaster of Terminator 3 sans Cameron. (more…)

For reasons hotly debated by office temps and great hunters around water coolers and water buffaloes, Jean-Claude Van Damme just loves to play two roles in his movies.  JCVD has played twins in not one but two movies (Double Impact & Maximum Risk), and in Timecop he teamed up with a past version of himself to battle time traveling hooligans.  Strangely, I’m reminded when a friend on a little league baseball team told the coach he wanted to become a switch hitter and bat left-handed, to which the coach replied, “Son, don’t you think you ought to get good at hitting right-handed before you try left-handed?”  Along these lines, someone ought to tell this to Mr. Van Damme, that before you attempt to tack dual roles in films, be good at one role first.  I should note that the most recent Van Damme film I saw, JCVD, Van Damme was good, but that can largely be attributed to the face he played himself, the role he was born to play.

In today’s subject, class, Replicant, scientists have found a new way for JCVD to square off with himself on-screen: Cloning. 

Here’s the concept: There’s a diabolical serial killer known as The Torch (Van Damme # 1), who burns mothers whom he overhears on the street rebuking their children as bad boys, sort of a knee jerk reaction to his own poor childhood.  Methinks this is a message to parents that if you spank your kids or do anything other than over protect and coddle them, they will become serial killers, bed-wetters, lame martial arts movie makers, or perhaps even worse. (more…)