Seasonal Affected Disorder

I'm still not back up to full writing strength but I did manage to post a review of the Season of the Witch DVD over on Examiner.com.

She's Bad

It's nice to be back writing again. On the off chance you haven't moved on to some other amateur film critic, here's my review of Bad Teacher.

Oops

Looks like my last post got deleted. Basically, there will be nothing from me this week in either of my two writing forums. I'm dealing with a death in the family and then it's back to work. See you next week.

On The Bright Side...

...another Transformers movie will soon come out and most likely set a new standard of dumb that movies like Battle: Los Angeles can only aspire to. My DVD review is over at Examiner.com.

EEEEEEK.T.

I posted this review of Super 8 on Saturday at Examiner but forgot to mention it here till today. Traditionally, of course, I don't post here on weekends anyway but that tradition is rather pointless. Then again, keeping pointless traditions is a sign of true class. I think.

Does This Bug You?

It's been a while since I've had time to do a Liveblog but that only means this one will be extra special. If it's not extra special, it's probably your fault in some way but we'll have to figure out why another time because it's time to get on with the movie. When I first saw this on Netflix Instant, my thought was, "Fuck me, there were three of these?" I sort of, kind of remember hearing about it but, for some odd reason, I never considered the existence of this sequel to be worth remembering. Anyway, let's hope the second in the series didn't contain anything important as I am never, ever going to watch it. Instead, let's all watch me as I watch 2008's straight-to-DVD freak show Starship Troopers 3: Marauder.

0:10:00 -- This movie is rather dull but, to make up for that, it's also poorly made. The director, Edward Neumeier, has a distinguished IMDB profile that consists mainly of writing mildly entertaining sci-fi films and their crappy sequels. He wrote all the Robocop films as well as the first Starship Troopers film which means he's one of the people I need to yell at for taking Robert Heinlein's adventure classic and turning into gross torture porn. A quick note to all you conservatives out there: why the hell do you all worship that sociopathic windbag Ayn Rand when Robert A. Heinlein expressed many of her ideas while also being able to tell entertaining stories? I'd join your movement if you'd abandon Atlas Shrugged and replace it The Man Who Sold The Moon. Hell, one of the plot points of Starship Troopers (the novel) is that the Earth is being successfully run by a benevolent military dictatorship. Someone at Fox news get on that. Anyway, they somehow managed to get Casper van Dien back to reprise the role of Johnny Rico. That's quite a "get" for them. I wonder how they managed to convince him to take time out from sitting around in his underwear and asking his neighbors if they wanted to come over and watch his Blu-Ray edition of Starship Troopers again. He's a colonel fighting the alien Bugs on a planet called Roku San. The Bugs now have these organic grenades they toss into his camp. The grenades are effective because, when the troops see one, they stand around and stare at it until it opens up and explodes instead of running away. Rico's unit is receiving a visit from an old buddy named Dix Hauser who's now dating one of rico's old flames, Capt. Lola Beck. She's played by Jolene Blalock whom you may remember as the Vulcan from Star Trek: Enterprise who logically concluded that she must wear tight clothing that showed off her flawless figure. Has anything actually happened in these first ten minutes? No, not really but I'm sure that's just a bold filmmaking choice and not indicative of the rest of the movie.

The girl standing next to Rico has a French accent so thick that she's nearly unintelligible. My assumption is that she'll be naked later in the film and then all will be forgiven.

0:30:00 -- Also arriving on base is Sky Marshal Anoke. Anoke is such a popular soldier that he's used in propaganda videos to get people to join the Federation Army. This is so despite the fact that he's short, bald and looks like a strong breeze would blow him over. So why is he mankind's greatest hero? Probably for a reason our primitive 21st century brains could never understand. In addition to all this, he's probably a traitor. I say this because he keeps talking about the Bugs with respect in his voice and a menacing look on his face. Meanwhile, General Dix Hauser is having fun listening to Rico and Dix's new girlfriend talk casually about all the good times they had when they were dating. There's actually some decent acting going on here as it's obvious that all this idle chat about picnics and sports activities that comprised their dating life is really about all the awesome, epic level fucking they used to do and they're saying this in front of her new boyfriend. A couple of Roku San farmers come into the military bar and start picking fights and criticizing the military and the war. This society hangs war protesters so Hauser orders them arrested before getting into a fight with one. Rico prevents Hauser from summarily executing the farmer and is relieved of his command just as the security fence fails and all the fierce, cartoon Bugs start swarming the camp. I'm sure that Sky Marshal Anoke has nothing to do with this even though he vanished for a while and mysteriously reappeared looking dazed. Lola flies Anoke off the planet while everyone else starts fighting the seemingly unstoppable Bug swarm. Oh, we haven't seen the hot French girl's boobs yet. I'll keep you informed.

Why is everyone so frightened of these? Just tell the CGI guy to reboot his Macintosh.

1:00:00 -- So, Roku San was a complete clusterfuck and they're laying the blame all on Rico who is sentenced to be executed for both incompetent command and hitting Dix. The whole time, all I could think was, "Is the hot French girl ok?" We haven't seen her in the past 30 minutes and I'm beginning to despair that this film will contain no gratuitous nudity. Meanwhile, the ship that Lola and Anoke escaped on is either attacked or blows up on its own and it really doesn't matter. What does matter is that everyone has to board escape pods so they can get away from the hilariously inept looking CGI spaceship crash. They land on some sort of habitable desert planet. The planet has bugs on it, of course, but they don't attack even though they spot the survivors fairly quickly. In addition to curbs on various civil liberties, all religion has been banned in this society which is why Lola is annoyed that everyone, including the Sky Marshal, is religious. He keeps talking about higher powers, talk that becomes suspicious when we find out that he was fascinated by the so called Brain Bug that the humans have in custody. Meanwhile, Rico is saved from execution by Dix who needs him to go after Lola. For reasons I'm sure will annoy me for their stupidity, an Admiral has ordered the Rescue Fleet not to go after Lola and Anoke so Dix, who has not yet tired of Lola's nether regions, wants Rico to take a small squadron and go after her. This leads us to a good five minutes of Rico meeting his new unit and everyone talking about how it's a good day to die and they'll kill the Bugs and let's all eat strudel which very well could have been in there since I stopped paying attention.

The ship probably wouldn't have crashed if they had just stopped shaking the damn camera.

1:25:00 -- Cool, the hot French girl (whose name, it turns out, is Link Manion which is probably also writer/director Neumeier's YouTube comments section name) is alive and well and part of Rico's squad. Oh, and she's naked. Gloriously and wonderfully naked along with Rico and the rest of the rescue squad. Why? Because the one thing this movie can do as well as the first one is to gives heaps of hot, naked bodies. No crap CGI necessary here. Want to see screenshots? Tough. I watched this piece of shit and deserve to see naked French girls. Back on Earth, the evil Admiral Enolo Phid has faked a bombing of the ruling council to cover up the disappearance of the Sky Marshal and Dix. Phid takes him to see the Brain Bug and shows him footage of Anoke being taken over and referring to the Bugs as God. Which, of course, begs the question of why he wasn't taken into custody long ago but there's not time to answer that because the Brain Bug has started shrieking and causing everyone's head to explode before Dix grabs a rifle and kills it. Why didn't it use the shrieking/head exploding thing before now? Let it go, people. This thing will last eight hours if we tie up all the loose ends. Back on the Bug planet, we find out that the Bug God is summoning Anoke to it and ends up swallowing him to gain his knowledge. Now, only Lola and some really annoying Jesus freak girl who was Anoke's assistant are left. I'm sure they'll now die and Rico won't drop in at the last minute to save them.

This Bug God could be easily dispatched with a grill and some barbecue sauce.

1:45:00 -- Jesus freak girl manages to convert Lola when they're at the mercy of the Bug God and they pray for angels to save them. Just then, in a stunning plot twist no one could have foreseen, Rico and his team land. They're decked out in some super powered armor and manage to take out not only a swarm but the Bug God who turned out to be surprisingly easy to kill, probably because he chose not to do that shrieking/head exploding thing, the most effective tactic in the history of warfare yet the Bugs have only used it once.. Why the Federation has never used this super armor before is yet another mystery but who gives a crap? Rico saves Lola and Jesus girl and who turns into Jesus Woman by convincing the Federation to legalize religion again. This means that now the Federation can hang war protesters with God's blessing, which they do when they kill the war protester they framed for Anoke's murder and some other shit happens but none of it involves French girls with perfect bodies so let's just call it a day.

Wow, must be some kiss. Dix got to kiss Jolene Blalock which means he's the only one who got anything good out of this movie other then me who can now celebrate that it's over.

Here's What's Going On

I'm still very busy and have no spare time so no new posts probably until Friday. Sorry.

Things I've Learned From Watching Movies Part 91

They say major Hollywood releases are mindless, intellectual wastelands but I say they teach the best lessons of all. For example:

Just because you've squeezed every last drop of story and then some from a concept that's already been the subject of four movies doesn't mean you shouldn't try again.

Outdated methods of recording can be made into incredible action flicks. This opens the door for monster movies about Betamax and zip discs.

The addition of Heather Graham to the cast means it's perfectly acceptable to jack off to a kid's movie. Seriously, go ahead and whip it out. The theaters will be totally cool with it.

The end of the world is near. The fact that this movie exists is proof.

This movie may or may not be good. It's hard to tell because it stars Ryan Reynolds and you can't trust the judgement of a guy who got sick of fucking Scarlett Johannson.

That Wisconsin governor may have a point about teachers.

If you make a touching fantasy movie about learning to live for others and trying to preserve a precious way of life that's in danger of coming to an end, be sure the sequel is about spies and shit like that.

I'm telling you, we are truly in the last days. Need even more proof. How about this?

Look At My Briefs -- 6/2/11

As usual, it's over at Examiner.com under a different, blander name but it's still another edition of my brief comments on various subjects I like to call Look At My Briefs.