Avalanche Sharks!

"Avalanche Sharks". Oh lord it is so bad. I need to wash my eyeballs with bleach. A pineapple enema would be better. Is this Ebola? Or am I just bleeding from my eyes in shock? Demon sharks in snow? Wait. What? And what's with that dog? They've tasted human flesh! Oh why, oh why do I watch these movies? Because they are soooooo bad. That music? Dum Dum Dum! That's actually Dumb Dumb Dumb! Teenagers. Spring break. Guns. Avalanches. Sharks. Ancient Indian Burial Ground Sharks. That haven't eaten for 25 years! What could possibly go wrong? "They love people meat" Apparently. And leap into spas full of spring break teenagers. And burst out of the ground to eat guys proclaiming love. What's next? Tree sharks! Swinging from tree to tree! Great sharks! In british columbia! With their girl by their side! And they'll sing! Sing! "I'm a lumber shark and I'm ok! I sleep all night and I eat teenagers all day!" I swear some of these lumber sharks are Canadian! I would swear i heard one lumber shark say"sorry" as it ate some one. Spoiler alert! Some random Japenese tourist straightens some bent sticks! And. And. Lumber sharks vanish! Next in this gripping shark fest: "They thought they were safe on the space station..." Monkey Space Bread Shark! From the people who brought you"Killer Croissants" and "Blood Soaked Baguettes"! Bread Sharks! High gluten terror! "This time... The bread slices you!" You know... Seriously... SciFi would probably make that movie. Er... I'd watch it... And while I'm on a ridiculous point, I've figured out why SciFi produces these appallingly bad movies. To stop an alien invasion. "Wait. What?" I hear you say. Well think about it. Our movie broadcasts are being picked up from civilisations out there. And to be sure their unaminous conclusion has to be: "Land there?! You're joking right? Have you seen the sharks? They're fucking everywhere. They fucking fly for GondFlangle's sake! No fucking way am I exposing my crew to that place.You can't conduct a proper anal probe if you aren't sure there aren't such things as ass-sharks! It'd be be Butts, Blood and Gore all over the medical bay"
What's next? Ben has some ideas... ArachnoShark! Swim into my web of terror! The eight finned freak of nature! Eight mouths! Eight Eyes! Eight stomachs! Eight fins! Eight... Eight... Oh... Whatever

Iron Man Zombie Robot Hitler is not happy - and he has a gatling gun

No.
I'm not kidding.
Ben keeps finding these movies.
I don't know how he does it.

He's a node warrior.

In any case 'Nazis at the Centre of the Earth' is worth a look.
If you are into gouging your eyes out with forks that is.

It's appalling.
There are so many 'WTFFF?' moments in this movie I couldn't even begin to do justice to it.
Although in this case justice might be better served by getting every copy on the planet and burning them.
Oh.. And the extra two F's are 100% totally insufficient.

I think the point when I said "Ok. This is very, very bad" was when an Lockheed P-3 Orion survey plane encounters the Nazi saucer rising out of the Antarctic ice and the radio conversation goes something like this:

Pilot: "I'd like to report a UFO!"
Off-Camera Dude: "UFO?"
Pilot: "Yes! It's huge!"
Off-Camera Dude: "You're cleared to engage!"

Wait. What? Engage? With what? Bad language? This is an Orion, not an F-18!

And then the Orion launches 8, yes *eight*, Hellfire missiles at the saucer.

"Calm down Kim... Breathe..."

Two things.

1) It's a frackin' survey plane. I know the Americans go a little gun happy arming things, but an Orion? In Antarctica? Hellfires? Eight of them?

2) As the pilot of the Orion, I would notice that the saucer is size of Nebraska. Oh. And the rivets holding it together were 3 foot across. Eight Hellfires would not be enough. Sixty four wouldn't be enough. I'd be "gone".

Oh.. And Robot Hitler? Cool. In a "WTF?" kinda way. I kept asking myself some things:

1) Why does he need to sit down? He's a frickin' robot.
2) Robot Hitler?
3) Gatling gun?
4) [Head explodes]

But I digress.

Wait. Where was i?
Oh yes.
It's KRAP.
But in a that "Wouldn't Miss It For The World" kinda way.
A kinda "Robot Hitler with a Gatling Gun" kinda way.

Movie Review: "Hunter Prey" 2010

I was expecting the usual fare of bad filming, acting and CG.
But no.
This was a very worthy piece of work.

Basically the movie starts with a bunch of Boba Fett look-a-likes who have lost their prisoner on a Tatoine like planet after crashing.
They are picked off one by one and eventually you find out that they are the aliens and their prisoner is the "Last Human" alive.

Eventually there is one alien vs one human hunting each other other a beautiful desert landscape.
There are a lot of twists and turns that, although telescoped somewhat, are very good.
The ending, which was again telescoped a bit, was delightful.
The filming and acting was great and the makeup was stunning for such a simple film.
The guns they used had that well-used feel that looks so real and a tad steam punk.
To be honest it looked like someone had made them from Nerf rifles, but the paint, general gunge and wear made them look very real.

The director "Sandy Collora" plays a part in the movie in heavy makeup and does a good job.
I look forward to seeing more of his work.

Movie Review: "Shark in Venice" 2008

Oh my lord this was awful.
Stephen Baldwin at his most wooden.
Total rubbish.
For example, the divers are talking on the radio.
But... They had regulators in their mouths... Say what?
And the CG was just appalling.

The only redeeming feature for us was that we could look at the shots of Venice and say things like:

"Oh. Oh. Remember that alley?"
"That's where that cool supermarket was!"
"Wasn't that tiny church down that path?"
"Hah. Remember getting lost through that bit?"

Sigh.

Haven't posted for a while. So here's a movie review and a suggestion for arming Curiosity.

Been recovering.
Then getting sick again.
Bloody weather.
Although I tend to think it's psychosomatic.
With the emphasis on psycho I fear.
As you will see as you read on...

Anyway. Where was I? Oh yes. That's what I want to blather about.
Movies.
Normally I watch absolutely frickin' ludicrous movies so I can rip on them.
"Two Headed Shark Attack" and the like.
Different last night.
Watched a bevy of old "good" movies.

"Things to Come" 1936
"The Way Ahead" 1944
"It Came From Outer Space" 1953

And "It. The Terror from Outer Space" 1958

Now this is a good movie.

Sorry to bring billy goats into this, but. But...

There are some serious "Wait. What? WTF?" moments in this movie that deserve mention.

So what's this movie about anyway?

Well this dude is the last survivor of an expedition to Mars.

His mates all got grabbed by some strange entity one by one.

In any case, the relief expedition arrives, pick him up and starts to return to Earth.

But they had an extra passenger.

The "thing/entity/badass alien" had hitched a ride. 

So ensues the standard battle between the crew and the almost indestructible thing.

Now it wouldn't have been so bad really. 

The acting was very good. 

The sets were good. 

The effects were good. 

But... 

The movie hailed from the 50s military-industrial complex world we have forgotten about today. 

So all the crew are armed to the frickin' teeth.

I just want you to think about this. 

I grew up in that world, and you young whipper snappers have no frickin' idea what it was like.

Frickin' guns, tanks, nukes, large clanky killing things every frickin' where.

For example I remember whooping at a Vulcan flying overhead.

It had a Blue Steel clearly visible in it's belly.

Frickin' mega-thermo-nuke bastard. There in the sky. Just overhead. In a jet.

And once my father showed me how to field strip his FN.

As a Christmas present.

That world.

Anyway...

At one point, the crew are standing about shocked at the fact that some bad ass alien has just crapped on them.

Then one crew member points at a box.

With the word "GRENADES" stenciled on it.

Wait.

WHAT?

Why the frickin' hell does a spaceship have grenades on board?

Seriously?

They then festoon, and I'm not using that word blithely, FESTOON two air shafts with about 40 grenades.

What the frickin' hell is that ships hull made of?

They all go off. 

It doesn't work.

This bad ass alien is immune to grenades.

They are all frickin' armed to the teeth with .45 calibre pistols, Tommy guns and Garand M1 rifles.

Wait.

WHAT?

This isn't a space ship it's a frickin' space marine assault craft!

They shoot enough ammunition that would mean the frickin' alien wouldn't be able to stand upright for all the bullets laying around.

It doesn't work.

So one crew member suggests gas.

Gas? What frickin' gas?

MUSTARD GAS!?!?!

Wait.

WHAT?

Apparently he "knocked it up on the trip to avoid boredom".

Frickin' tons of it.

FYI: I do not want this man on any international flight I take.

Anyway, they unload enough mustard gas into the level with the alien to suffocate a European city.

It doesn't work.

They try electrifying the ladders.

It doesn't work.

So there they are trapped in the top of the ship.

Facing certain death.

And the alien bad ass is climbing up to them.

And they have...

Wait for it...

A BAZOOKA.

Wait.

WHAT?

They've got a frickin' bazooka?

It doesn't work.

They finally dispatch the frickin' alien by evacuating all the oxygen in the ship.

That works.

Erm... It's never explained how they get home of course.

A dog barks.

Everyone laughs.

Now.

Seriously.

Who was the quartermaster for this trip? Some "Scot Mc-Nutter-Looney-Mc-F**k" I'm thinking.

"Ah yes. Now ye'll be needin' some weaponry. I've packed some basics. VX, Tabun and the like. But also a 45 calibre pistol for each of you, several M1 rifles, a few Thompson sub-machine guns, 60 or so grenades, a bazooka, flamethrower and some assorted maces, broadswords, pikes and a walking tank. Now I know that sounds like a lot, but it's just the basics mind. If this was a military expedition we'd be adding gatling guns, missiles and a company of marines. But you're only a rescue mission, so you just need the basics. Now don't complain about the weight... We've included two nuclear reactors and just enough oxygen to get you there and back."

But it was a good movie.

4 out of 5 stars.

Cheered me up somewhat.

Actually... Now I think about it... 

Let's lobby NASA to allow crew to carry guns. 

Lots of guns! 

Yeah, that works. 

Let's see the replacement shuttle with a pair of 20mm mini-guns mounted on it. 

Let's go back to the days when astronauts all had pistols at their sides. 

Works for me. 

And after all we're not that far from it.

Most commercial air liner pilots have access to pistols and ammunition. 

So why not extend that a bit...

For example, why the heck didn't curiosity have gatling guns and missiles?

"What's that over there? Some interesting geological formation! Let's blow the shit out of it! Oh wait! Is that a foreign space craft landing on our frickin' Mars? Let loose the missiles!"

Now that would have tripled the audience and got the US government on side for more funding.

O.M.G. Just watched "Mammoth" (2006) the movie

It was actually quite good.
Loads of tongue in cheek.
Tom Skerrit et al.

Anyway, that's not what this post is about.
We accidentally had Swedish sub-titles set on.
We were going to turn them off, but it was kinda fun.
In any case, this post is about the very last frame of the movie.

O.M.G.

Un-frickin-believable.

As the titles said:

"The End?"

The Swedish sub-title came up:

"Slut?"

Wait. What?
Proof:

Off to Google translate.
Yup.
The end is Slut in Swedish.

The synonyms are as follows:

end, closure, tail, close, finish, conclusion

Oh there are so many ways to have fun with this...
We tried reversing to English->Swedish.
What fun.

come-off, net, wind-up, upshot, done in, exhausted, washed-up and disposed-of.

Seriously?
Well I guess the 'Net (and Mitt Romney) is all of those things.

So the next time someone says "It's the end" you can say "Slut!" and when they advance on you threateningly, just say it's Swedish.

And for those crazy people in IT I have one thing to say...
Yes. Yes. I know it was on a frickin' computer and I could have done a screen capture remotely from my own machine, but I was just dumbfounded and grabbed the frickin' phone ok?

Movie Review: "Adam Chaplin" 2011

Ben's been in charge of the entertainment lately - tonight I made the mistake of telling him I wanted a movie with action and senseless violence (it was that kind of day)...

He paid me back by putting "Adam Chaplain" in the dvd player.

I don't know where he actually got this movie and can only assume it involved a black candle, 2 dead chickens, and a pentagram.

I sat utterly stunned while this movie ran.
WE sat stunned.
Not stunned as in "surprised" but stunned as in "hit in the face with a rotting fish".
Had I taken LSD sometime before I started watching?
I think not, but watching this movie it would be impossible to tell.
I kept looking at my dinner thinking it must have been laced with something.

There is only one word in the English language that sums up the response of any normal human to this movie:

DAFUQ?

Dario Argento himself would have found this movie needlessly violent and macabre.
It had a dwarf! A dwarf demon!
Who lived in the main characters right shoulder blade, in the blood spurting wound in the shape of a upside-down cross (a motif used throughout the movie) burned into his skin by his dying girlfriend.
Wait.
What?!?!?
His wha?????
Yup. Right shoulder blade. Lives inside an upside down cross shaped blood spurting wound. In the heroes shoulder.
I use the word "hero" here because that seemed to be the intention, but his innocent body count is even higher than the all the villains combined.

Dario my friend, even in your most insane movie, you couldn't have made this crap up.

It was Italian by the way.

This movie had everything:
Revenge, Blood, Psychos, Blood, Violence, Blood, Murder, Blood, Street crime, Blood, Homeless, Blood, Mad leather face scientists, Blood, Bashed in heads, Blood, Mutant cops, Blood, Matrix style millions of punchs a second, Blood....
Oh, and did I mention it had buckets and frickin' buckets of frickin' blood.
FRICKIN' BLOOD!

In the end I have to admit I only kept watching because the lead (Emanuele De Santi who was also the writer and director) has great abs.
Ben said he only kept watching out of curiosity on exactly how long it would take me to beg him to turn it off... But I made it all the way to the end credits. (Yes... the abs were really that good)

By the end of the movie I still have no frickin' idea what it was about. (Mmm abs...)

This is a movie with a message.
And the message is "Beware."
Actually more like "Be Were It is Not."

From a company called necrostorm.
They have a website claiming they want to make movies with that 80's 90's feel using modern techniques.
Apparently movies in the 80's and 90's were total crap without scripts and modern techniques are limited to using high powered pumps to gush blood instead of just letting it ooze like it used to.

There have only been two movies EVER which I couldn't figure out what the frickin' hell was going on, this one and Casshern.

Comparatively the storyline of Casshern, with its tale of soldiers dying in combat and being rebuilt in a giant blood tank by a mad scientist before spontaneously re-animating, fighting their way out of the city, building a new civilisation in the abandoned mountain fortress of a forgotten wizard before returning to wage war on the entire world with giant war robots built by kidnapped scientists so they can find their own humanity.... (stops to breath in) is simple and straight forward compared to the story of "Adam Chaplin".

Wait.
Did I just say that?
Out loud?
But seriously, Casshern made a frick' sight more sense than this one (and is much better made).

Purchase this one at your peril.
You'll laugh.
You'll hurl.
You'll need medication.
You'll end up being committed.
And you bitch and moan that I didn't give you more warning.

Movie Reviews: "Supershark" (2011) and "The Beast from 20,000 fathoms" (1953)

Ah. The joys of video store bargain bins.
Picked up Supershark for $2.
Overpaid $2 I should say.
Ok. Result: Supershark: What a steaming pile of ass gravy.

An oil rig is using some pseudo fracking technique and opens a crack in the ocean floor out of which, for no apparent or explained reason, a frickin' huge megalodon style shark emerges.
It heads to the surface, flies out of the water, grips a crane and, despite the obvious fact that the crane would simply snap off, proceeds to topple the entire half million tons of rig ass over tit.
What? This, 5mins in, had us convulsed with laughter.
No way could you suspend disbelief here.
About the only way you conceivably believe what was happening would be if you had an IQ of 3 and had lived in a yurt your whole life.

The shark possessed some many super powers it had us in fits.
For example, at one stage it attacked a nuclear sub and blew it up.
At another stage if flew up (yes it can fly) and snarfed an F16 jet flying overhead.
And the final scene between a handful of soldiers and a walking tank (yes you heard me "walking tank") nearly had me have an aneurysm.
This shark can fly and walk on land.
What?

The acting was not even amateurish.
Frickin' awful.

Dialogue was stunning.
In the sense of being stunned by having been hit in the temple with a ball peen hammer.

The CGI was unbelievably bad.
The shark changed size so many times you got dizzy.

Utter, utter, utter crap.
Go watch it. You'll laugh until your ears bleed.

Funnily enough the 1953 "The beast from 20,000 fathoms" used virtually the same story line.

A nuclear test in the arctic releases a huge reptile which, while not tipping over oil rigs, eats several fishing boats as it moves south to warmer climes.
It's eventually dispatched in an amusement park by a very young Lee van Cleef using an irradiated shell from an over sized rifle.
I loved the part where the monster gets pissed off by gun fire and smashes through a building to escape.
Next time you watch the 1998 version of Godzilla, you'll see echoes of the 1953 beast in it.
Apart from the fact that 20,000 fathoms is about 11 miles deep and even the Marianas trench is only about half that, and no trenches even beginning to approach that exist in the arctic, it was a very watchable film.

We didn't laugh.
Well a bit...
But seriously it was wonderfully acted and totally believable.
In that nuclear monster released and running amok kind of way.

The difference between the movies was striking.
Supershark was badly acted, badly written, badly filmed, totally ludicrous and riddled with silliness.
The beast was well acted, well written, well filmed and had the advantage of having Ray Harryhausen doing the stop motion monster.

Loved both of them.

Movie Review: "Undead" (2003)

We tend not to buy movies from places like J&B.
We like to sift through the bargain bins at video stores for the most outrageous lunatic movies we can find.
It's great fun and you see movies which get no press or are just frickin' brilliant for next to no cost.

So.
We stumbled on "Undead".
Surprisingly good Australian movie, made on a shoestring, with:

1. Australians.
2. Guns.
3. Queensland Police.
4. More guns.
5. Zombie humans.
6. More guns.
7. Zombie fish.
8. More guns.
9. Aliens.
10. Did I mention guns?

Because you know you're watching a good movie when:

The splash screen exhorts you to "Begin Carnage" rather than "Play Movie".

The main protagonist fights off Zombie Fish in a row boat with a pistol and is then abducted by aliens.

A cricket match is interrupted by meteors which shoot holes in the team.

The main protagonist mainly uses a weapon made of three pump action shot guns bolted together.

A Queensland copper (in shorts) bursts into a house, smashes a window, starts shooting his shotgun out that window and screams:

"When I was a kid we f**kin' respected our elders! We didn't f**kin' eat them! F**kin' marijuana f**kin'  hippy f**kin' surfer f**kin' dole bludger b*stards!" 

Frickin' love it!


IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0339840/

Which describes an Australian town as 'quaint' and 'charming'.
Hmm.
I don't think any one who has been to an outback Australian town would use those words...
Well not in a pub unless they are deliberately trying to get their head bashed in.

Movie Review: "The Darkest Hour" 2011

Holy sh*t. Another sci-fi end of the world movie. Would you actually believe it?

Phhhhbbtttt. Of course you would!

Actually it was rather good. Set in Moskva and saving a shed load on special effects by making the aliens invisible (for the most part).

Really liked it. Maybe understanding enough Russian to get by helped... Embarrassed to speak it, but what the hell.

But seriously, if you want a light hearted take on sci-fi alien invasion 'beginning' (no ending here), then watch it. Kinda like "Battle for Los Angeles" (The good one not the cr*p one) set in Moskva.

Currently listening to Laibach btw. Loud.

Movie Review "Iron Sky" (2011)

Just watched Iron Sky.

Frickin' splutter.
Frickin' watch this.
Frickin' it's the best sci-fi movie you'll watch all year.

Frickin' spluttering, laughed, cried and every frickin' emotion and LMFAO.
Frickin' go out and get the full edition with all the extras.
I'm serious.
Do it now. Do it!

Here's the UK link:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Iron-Sky-Blu-ray-Digital-Copy/dp/B007ZZKWHY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1338373074&sr=8-1

Give these guys who created a movie out of nothing but an idea some frickin' money.
Crowd source!
Wished we'd invested. Oh lordy, wished we'd invested.
And it was made just down the road from us.
JUST DOWN THE ROAD!
I DRIVE PAST THE PLACE THEY MADE THIS SEVERAL TIMES A WEEK!

Oh lordy, wished we'd invested.

You'll love the Downfall meme! LMFAO!
There are so many memes in this that'll you'll have an "accident".
Go get it.
Frickin' brilliant.

Love the fact that the first spaceship to out itself was Ozzie!
Oi! Oi! Oi!

I know you're thinking: "Don't blog when under the influence."
But seriously. Wine and Bourbon aside. I LMFAO.

And Seriously.
Go get this movie.
Buy the full, extended edition.
With extras!
The moment that the character grasped her glasses, I got the meme.
Downfall.

And started spluttering.
I need a shower after watching this.
I'm covered in bits of food and wine.

Seriously.
Get this.
Buy the DVD or Blu Ray special edition.

Frickin' buy this frickin' movie and frickin' watch it.

Buy the DVD or Blu Ray special edition.

LYOFAO. Laibach! Laibach! Laibach! And wait for the end of the credits. Mars?
Wait. What?

Movie Review: "Alien Western/High Plains Invaders" (2009)

A few weeks ago we stopped by one of those $2 reject shops and noticed this DVD.
Thinking it would be a good laugh, we bought it.

So over fish and chips we watched it tonight.
My Gast was completely Flabberred.
Truly I was expecting to be falling about laughing all the time.
Truly, ruly, ruly I expected to be choking on chips and sputtering wine all over the coffee table every five minutes.

But. Frickin' 'ell. It was actually *good*. Or maybe the wine, fish and chips are talking. Or the fact that I'm a fan of low budget sci-fi movies.

James Marsters (Spike from Buffy) was the main star. The direction was tight, the acting was excellent and although the CGI was not fantastic it was pretty damn good. The alien design was quite unique and quite nice. Four legged, millions of teeth laden mouths, guns in their tails, slow moving, utter crapoids hooked on eating Uranium. Kinda different from standard bi-pedal bugs intent in just eating humans.

Just how they could possibly operate a star ship is not the point btw.

The lighting not so good. But then it was probably filmed in winter in Canada by the look of it.

Script a bit hammed up but they're cowboys for Earp's sake!!! They're going to say "Say son, you look like you need a shot of whiskey" rather than "Pull up a chair old boy. Let's sample this Chateau Peridot 1847. The bouquet! Reminds me of spring in Lyon."

And some of the guns in use... well... not of the era... but... so what? It's a movie not a documentary!

The story, like cowboys vs aliens, was a bit on the 'Wait. What? No. Really?' kind of side, but who the hell cares. The fact that Spike hauled a lead box 4' x 4' x 3' filled with pitchblende (Or U-235 not sure) onto the back of a wagon was... let's just say... a tad unconvincing but who the f**k cares. It looked good!

(I have to say I have a soft spot for James Marsters so I'm probably biased... Twitchy. Twitchy)

If you liked cowboys vs aliens, go watch it.

Personally I'm waiting for cowboys vs ninja robots vs pirate monkeys vs predators vs aliens fused with spiders with wings. All at once. In Stalingrad. In 1942.

Movie Review: "Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol"

Mission Fricking-Stupid-Frickin-improbable.

I now understand why Nick Frost wasn't included but Simon Pegg was.
Because at every point in the plot Nick would have said:

"This Is Pure Bollocks"

And rightly so. This movie was simply a movie to have Tom Cruise prance about doing impossible, no... Improbable things. Had Nick Frost been involved then Thompson and Thompson would have stolen the movie. Easy given Cruises abysmal performance.

Impossible is so right. Ghost is right. It's abysmal at the most fundamental level. I walked away after 2/3rds of the movie and felt nothing.

Arse gravy. Bollocks.

Movie Review: "Atlas Shrugged" (2011)

Ben and I were doing some running around on Saturday and noticed a billboard advertising "El Maco" from McDonalds. Now I am not a fan of Maccas, and haven't had anything from them for nearly a year, but it was a Mexican burger... And I like Mexican. The way the El Maco was advertised it was a big burger with spicy sauce and sour cream.

So on Sunday we stopped on the way home by our local and bought two El Macos and two large fries and when home, settled down to watch a movie. As it happens I had reviewed Ayn Rand Nation a week or so ago so it seemed appropriate to watch Part I of Atlas Shrugged.

We sat down and opened the bag. WTF. These burgers are tiny. Barely the size of a cheese burger. And flat as a tack. I stared at mine in disbelief. "You gotta be joking." Maco? MACO? El Decepcion more like. Sigh. Oh well. Maybe it tastes better than it looks.

Nope. Bland. Tasteless. Cardboard. Crap. No hint of spice at all. Maybe they mean for me to eat the container to add spice?

Much like the movie.

The production and filming was precise and clean. The actors well groomed. The dialogue... Stilted. The actors... Cardboard cutout people. Zero passion. Zero emotion. Flat. I remember reading the book in the late 70's and visualising the characters. Eddie, Dagny, Ellis, Hank and so on. I felt not so much inspired, but liking them in a strange way. They were so purposeful. Driven. And to me... Real.

I liked the black actor playing Eddie. That was a nice touch. And Graham Beckel as Ellis Wyatt was a good choice. All the others seemed like... Dunno. No depth. Just reading the script I guess.

I was reminded of the William Hurt version of Dune. After reading the book and watching the sumptious De Laurentius version I watched the William Hurt version and was under-whelmed. Now imagine that there was no De Laurentius version of Dune and all you saw was the William Hurt version. You'd be...

Under-whelmed. Felling Meh. With a side order of Humph.

And that is what Part I of Atlas Shrugged seemed to me.

I understand that Part II will be released later this year. I'll watch it. Just because I'm driven to complete whatever I start. But I hold no great expectations.

Movie Review: "Rubber" (2010)

Wait. What? No it's not what you're thinking. Get your mind out of the gutter.

Seriously though... Go get this movie. It's frickin' genius. The words "Avant Garde" can be pronounced "Rubber" as far as I am concerned.

Ok. So what's the premise? Well... A tire. An ordinary radial. Comes to life and becomes a serial killer. Blows it's first rabbit to bits in the first 15 minutes. Get's seriously pissed off with a bottle after 17mins. 20mins and it's blown a crow to bits through sheer f*cking mental will-power.

Graduates to people later.

It has an on-screen audience. All but one of which gets poisoned to death by bad turkey provided by one of the other characters.

Wait. What? Seriously? This is a movie?

Yeah really. And the production values and script are excellent. You really believe that the tire gets pissed off when it sees it's brethren being burned in a fire. You really believe it's getting rocks off watching Nascar on TV in a motel. And it get's hyper pissed off with the fake sheriff.

I AM NOT SH*TTING YOU. IT'S GOOD.

Oh. And it gets re-incarnated as a tricycle after being blown to bits by a fake sheriff. And leads an army of tires to Los Angeles.

Wait. What?

But seriously. Go get this movie. It's really, really good. Blurs the lines all over the frickin' pace. Third wall? Who needs it. Get the audience involved. Hell. Have them killed. Blow their heads apart. Poison them. Anything.

To be honest I expected death to make an appearance popping in like in a Swedish movie saying something inscrutable. But no. Just people being blown to bits by a savage radial tire.

Curious thing is that I read the blurb and poster for the movie. So what you say. It's in Dutch. And it makes sense. Well. My kind of sense anyway. I read it out loud (yes really) although with an English accent. B was impressed.

Movie Review: "The Scorpion King 3: Battle for Redemption" (2012)

Don't bother. Unless you have a penchant for driving nails into your eyes with a jack hammer. Or wiring electrodes to your nether regions just to see what happens.

It's so frickin' dull.
Dull.
Dull.
Dull.
So frickin' dull. And boring. And stupid. And silly. And... And.. O f**k it. I'm off to stuff my head in the microwave.

We watched it for about 1/2 hr. At that point I had almost lost the will to live and had decided it had turned into a Warner Bros cartoon. I decided to end it all by jamming toothpicks into my ears to drown out the appalling jokes.
It's frickin' awful.
The jokes are crude and endless and tedious.
The acting is, at best Uwe Bolle, and equal best frickin' awful.

We stopped it and went off to watch YouTube videos of a spider eating a snake.

That's how bad it is.

K.R.A.P. of the highest order.

Please. Please. Don't subject yourself to it. Go out and pray to Duke Dantalion to save you. At least he's a demon who teaches art and science which is what this move lacked in every important way. If you don't know what the f**k I'm talking about go google Ars Goetia.

To unquote Stephen Fry it was "Arse Gravy of the worst kind..." mainly because he wasn't talking about the movie, but could have been. And if he had ever seen even part of this movie, probably was.

Movie Review: "Ra One" (2011)

This is actually a very good movie. Bit slow at the start. After the first 10mins B and I turned to each other, raised eyebrows and both said "Wanna keep watching?"

Glad we did.

It's an Indian sci-fi about a pair of indestructible game characters that enter the "real" world and spread mayhem. Acting solid, storyline frenetic and without dead patches. Loads of humor. Wire work is just fantastic. Mandatory song and dance routines of course, but I actually like them and danced along with one! Filmed in London and Mumbai.

Apparently Boris Johnson had something to do with the London filming... Gotta love that guy. Made politics fun even if it wasn't laughable to begin with.

Watch it through! Yes. Even the credits. Because they have the gag reel and behind the scenes footage. Loved the bit when a boom camera gets smashed to bits by a passing train.

BTW, you'll have to ensure your sub-titles are on because the characters switch between Tamil and English words on a word to word basis.

Movie Review: "Legion"

Hmmph.
Downgraded to Meh.
First off I just don't get this obsession with end of times stuff.
I don't mean the save the world stuff like Independence Day (not that I don't have serious beefs with that one), but rather this Armageddon apocalypse nonsense where some invisible mystical being sends 'down' warriors to destroy everything and kill everybody but the ones who are faithful.
Messianamericism I guess.

Anyway, apart from one scene where I thought the angels use of wings as a potent physical weapon was an original idea, I felt the movie just fell flat.
There were a lot of zombies involved, but they were a characterless inert bunch and if they had not been present I don't think anyone would have noticed.

All in all if you want to get a feel for the movie, watch Terminator followed by The Prophecy movies.
Same result but more enjoyable.

Say this in a Christopher Walken voice: "If you want the baby to live, come with me"

Meh.

Movie Review: "The Man with X-Ray Eyes"

From 1963. Does it hold up?
Frickin' A.
I first saw this in the early 70's and thought it was great.
And it still is.
Ray Milland as the obsessed scientist, Don Rickles as the fairground exploiter and so on.

I have only one beef with it...

"And if thine eye offends thee, pluck it out!"

Er... No... No I won't. I want more. Dammit. MORE.
Every now and then I get a glimpse into the underlying reality that is reality.
A "matrix moment" if you will. Brian Greene, Carl Sagan, Richard Feyman et al.
It's really there! A swarming mass of radiation. A fog of particles sleeting through us and around us and *is* us.
We are a seething mass of radiation swirling and interacting with other seething masses of radiation.

There is no 'red'. There is just a mass of swirling radiation with a little paint-by-numbers messages on it that our brains use to interpret as 'red'.
I love that. It makes sense.
I can almost see it out of the corner of my eye, Dirk Gently like.

Like the Inflaton field.
I can almost glimpse it sometimes, and I can almost feel the sheer frickin' expanse of it sweeping outwards.
The sound of one inflaton clapping so to speak.

Ray Milland didn't go far enough.
Just a bit further and the character might have seen the face of ... Er... No... Maybe Einstein or Godel or Feynman even.

So if you get a chance to see this movie, do so.

Movie Review: "Hybrid"

Ok. Once you get past the central conceit, this isn't a bad film.
The acting is good, the filming fairly tight and not flaky, the suspense and flow maintained quite well.
Nice sting in the tail and good characterizations for the most part.

The idea is that a bunch of police mechanics and doing a late night Friday shift and are working 3 levels down in a heavily secured workshop.
Unfortunately for them a car has been delivered that is, shall we say, not what it seems.
Ten little indians happen and one by one they get eaten by the car.
Until they trap it in.... No. No spoilers.

My only problem is the central conceit.
So... You know that certain octopuses, octopi or whatever can disguise themselves as coconuts, coral and what not, yes?
So... Thousands, if not millions of years ago, some octopi came on land.
And started hunting humans.
So they disguised themselves as caves, trees and what not.
Wait. What?
Ok. Ok. Never mind. Let's just drive headlong into weirdness.
So over the millennia they have disguised themselves using the current dominant useful thing.
Caves. Trees. Huts. Sheds. Cars.
What. What?
Ok. Ok. Never mind. Let's just drive headlong into weirdness.
Yes cars. So they camouflage themselves so well as a Buick town car or a Ford GTO that even trained mechanics can't tell at 2 feet that they are a frickin' great bad ass octopus.
When it's sitting there and they're all standing around it, why the phuque doesn't it reveal itself and eat them right there?
Oh well.
I enjoyed it. It just wasn't that bad as far a B- Grade sci-fi.
Or maybe I was too sick. Whatever.
So grab some beers and a pizza and watch it.