The Sarah Connor Chronicles and a NEW LOST Teaser!!

Okay, so what did I think of the rather clumsily named TERMINATOR: THE SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES last night? I actually thought it was pretty cool. Nice action, engaging story, good actors. The biggest compliment that I can give Lena Headey, is that I didn't think of Linda Hamilton once during the premiere. She became Sarah Connor, playing the role with the weight it deserved. She was haunted, burdened, tough yet maternal. Thomas Dekker played John Connor as less of a kid than Eddie Furlong, but then again his innocence would be stripped away after the events in T2. Summer Glau is Summer Glau, River Tam always rocks. I liked the way the series bridged the gap between T2 and now, the time travel was a nice element. The action was suitably action-y and it appears like they got away with a lot for network TV.  Apparently the Connors versus Skynet is going to be the predominant arc of the show, so you're not going to want to miss an episode. 

So was it all peaches and cream? Of course not. There were... things. Bad things. For instance, they decided to make the good terminators eyes glow blue instead of red. You see? Red bad. Blue good, dumb TV audience. Also, a terminator, posing as a substitute teacher, felt the need to hide his gun in his fleshy thigh, the only way of being able to extract it being to cut into the aforementioned fleshy thigh with a knife. In front of a roomful of students. I know. Now I know when you time travel you can't take items or clothes. You arrive to your temporal location naked and empty-handed. But the substitute teacher-terminator was able to get a hounds tooth jacket. Wouldn't buying a gun and putting it in the pocket of your jacket be a better plan than slicing open your leg in front of a bunch of fifteen year olds? I'm just saying. Also, the very instance Sarah Connor and her clan arrives in 2007, naked as the day they were born, some kid videos them with his cell phone and apparently gives it to the news. And the news plays it! Because it was newsworthy? I don't know. And, also every single person who knew Sarah Connor eight years before happens to be watching the newscast. But I guess if I lived in a town where naked ladies lead the day's stories, I would be watching too. The whole thing just screamed, "PLOT DEVICE!" But all in all, none of these things were enough to put me off from watching. I mostly enjoyed what I saw. I can handle a little cheese. I'll be tuning in tonight for episode 2.

The last thing here is a teaser for the first episode of LOST, season 4. I can't wait for this series to start back up. The teaser's pretty cool. Check out the reflection in the water at the end.

Pursuit of Happyness Review (and yes I know it's been out for like a year)

In my everlasting quest to keep you, dear readers, up to date with the latest movie critiques and most current film analysis, I bring you my "Pursuit of Happyness" review. I know it's on STARZ. Shut up. Don't judge. "Pursuit of Happyness" follows a down on his luck single father, played by Will Smith, as he tries and becomes a stock broker while taking care of his son. His unpaid internship and a series of unfortunate events causes him to lose everything, including his fleabag motel room. He and his son are put out on the street but he refuses to give up. There's no Plan B. He's determined to be a stock broker. As he goes from subway station bathrooms to various shelters for the night, he dotes on his son, cramming for his final internship exam as his son sleeps. This film is about one man's perseverance to make a better life for himself and his son. It's about not giving up, no matter what. It's about a parent's love for their child.

So in other words, "Pursuit of Happyness" is a sappy, string pulling, overly sentimental film that does everything save kill a puppy, to wring a tear out of you. And you know what? It works. Or at least it did on me. I got a text from a friend and when I replied that I had just watched this movie and loved it. His response was "Eh." Of course his response was that. He's a single guy who's well enmeshed in his bachelorhood. When we saw "House of 1000 Corpses" together in the theater, and Sheri Moon is walking up to the liqueur counter and the camera is trained on her chaps-laden ass, he blurted out, "Daddy likes." No shit. He's that guy. Beer and bimbos are the order of the day. To him responsibility is bagging it before you're tagging it.

I, on the other hand, lead a completely different life. I have a son who is three years old who I would do anything for. I do have a beautiful wife and a nice home and my son didn't drop his Captain America doll in the street (see the movie) but I can relate. I have responsibilities to my son, my wife, my family. I put them above all else. So I guess you could say that I'm this film's target demographic. I think all parents are. So what can I say? I dug it. Will Smith did a fantastic job, as usual, and his son in the movie, played by his son in real life, did a pretty good job as well. Can't say it was a bad way to spend a Sunday night. Goddamn, I'm getting soft.

New York Doll- The Documentary

I just watched this terrific documentary called "New York Doll" on the Sundance channel. And it was about, yep... you guessed it, the New York Dolls. But more specifically it's about their bass player, Killer Kane. Now I know the Dolls music, and a little about David Johanson, and a little about Johnny Thunders, but I knew nothing at all about Killer Kane. Turns out he lived the typical rock n' roll nightmare; substance abuse, failed relationships, suicide attempts. After he took a header out a three story window in an attempt to end it all, Killer Kane saw an ad in the TV Guide for the church of latter day saints. He dialed the number and found God. The film opens with an older, frail gentleman jumping on a bus to go to his job at the mormon temple's library. This man is Killer Kane, thirty years after the New York Dolls. He seems content with his life, happy that he's found his calling, but he has unresolved feelings about his past. Enter Morrisey who's putting together a music festival in London. His dream is to reunite the remaining living Dolls to headline. I really don't want to go into anymore detail,  it actually surprised me and I think it will work better the less you know. You should just see it. It's funny, sad, triumphiant, and the ultimately heart-breaking. Just set your Tivos. It's playing on the Sundance channel this month. It's a sad, unforgettable film.

Resident Evil: Extinction

So on Saturday night I threw in the Resident Evil: Extinction DVD. And you know what? It wasn't that bad for a B-movie. I was raised on a steady diet of B-fair so I'm especially forgiving of any movie that is post apocalyptic, or features zombies, or has lots of pointless explosions and gunplay, or clunky dialogue, or features hot chicks kicking ass. And let me tell ya, RE: Extinction has all of those things in abundance. This movie is like a weird mash-up of Day of the Dead and The Road Warrior, though a lot dumber than either of those and not nearly as compelling. Though it's shot well with lots of moving cameras, long lenses, helicopter and crane shots it's edited like Lil Jon's "Throw It Up" video. The movie starts a few years after the second one and the world has gone to hell. The T-virus has turned most of the global population into zombies and the world into a desert. Who knew there was a link between the undead and global warming? Paging Al Gore (there's a zombie joke somewhere in there but I'm just too tired to find it). Anyway, Alice (the lovely Milla Jovovich) is wandering around the southwest United States in brown leather chaps  with her new Jedi Powers (don't ask) and hooks up with a convoy of survivors (I told you they were aping The Road Warrior) and the stripper chick from Heroes. She must save the survivors, overcome her Umbrella programing (she might be a robot??) and slice and dice some guy in a rubber suit. Will she? Guess.

As a side note, Russell Mulcahy, the director of Highlander directed this. I'm genuinely glad this guy is still working as Highlander was one of my seminal films growing up and I consider it a classic (and no I am not being facetious).

Can I recommend it? Well, if you have any inkling to see it, go ahead and see it. You probably won't be too disappointed. If you disliked the previous two or the trailer looked beyond tedious to you, skip it. This movie is definitely for a specific audience, and that ain't you, baby blue.

You almost have to admire Paul Anderson, the guy who wrote and produced all three Resident Evil films and directed the first one. He had the tenacity to keep churning these things out despite the critical drubbing and the low box office. Maybe he has a passion for the material like Peter Jackson had for the Lord of the Rings, so he continues to poop these films out every couple of years. It's kind of sad but kind of life affirming at the same time. And by the way, if you were expecting the series to be done, because this was the third film in a trilogy and all movies aspire to be trilogies these days, guess again. The ending is left wide open and nothing is resolved. Expect another one of these gems in a couple years. These movies must be a way for the mob to launder money. Oh well, bully for us. Poop on Mr. Anderson, I'll be watching.

Happy New Year

Happy new year, everyone. Hopefully everyone is well on the road to recovery by now. I had one of the most mellow new year's eve ever. Not exactly by choice, but I didn't mind it either. I have a sick wife and a sick kid so we stayed in (I don't think any of our babysitters wanted to enter the Hot Zone to ring in the new year, and I can't say I blame them). 

We watched The Bourne Ultimatum on HD DVD. I had already caught it in the theater but my wife hadn't seen it yet. I had a little wine with dinner (steak de burgo, tortellini, bruschetta) and I was drinking a couple beers after, so I was in a slightly buzzed, completely relaxed state. The first time I saw The Bourne Ultimatum everything seemed a little too tied up and a little too pat at the end. "You're really David Webb, you volunteered, we're right nasty bastards, I keep a whole file in my office that says that we're right nasty bastards, if this would ever fall into the media's hands...D'OH!" 

The whole, maybe he doinked Nikki Parsons (Julia Stiles) maybe he didn't thing, just left me cold. I didn't need romance in this one. Bourne had hooked up with Lola (Franka Potente) in the first one, how are you going to beat that? At least the film makers didn't go too far with the Parsons character. I mean, Bourne didn't have any flashbacks of he and Nikki walking hand in hand on a beach or anything. But the overall history of Bourne and Nikki having a previous relationship just struck me as lame.  I know it sounds like I didn't like the movie, but that's not the case at all. The above gripes are just the film's crooked teeth, which can look good on a hot girl, and Ultimatum is a hot girl. Just not as hot as its friends, Identify or Supremacy. In my slightly inebriated state, I enjoyed the movie all the more. The cat and mouse chase in the train station in London is awesome and I was surprised (in both viewings) by the ultimate fate of the investigative reporter. Brutal. Also enough can't be said about the fight in Morocco. As I watched it again, I was struck how the fight seemed like a fight, not a choreographed sequence of moves. It was savage. Painful. Blood and piss and sweat. It makes fights in other movies seem a bit silly in comparison. And with my renewed optimism for the new year, the ending struck me as just right. I liked how Bourne struggled against his programming, got his answers and got away. Overall a good end to a great trilogy. In case you're wondering, I like the first one the best, but all of them are great action movies with as much going on in their heads as in their shorts. And no...I don't really know what that means.

By the way, I can't say enough about my HD DVD player. It's not just the picture as the sound. The Bourne Ultimatum HD DVD is a new high water mark for the format. To the point where my wife commented on how good it was. For any husbands out their with technology indifferent wives (she would be happy to watch a VHS on a 13' standard def through the T.V. speakers) this is saying something. I could go on and on about HD and I probably will at some time in the future but I want to wrap this up.

So after the movie, the wife went to bed (the kid had long since gone to bed) and I rang in the new year with one of my dogs, a pug named Enid. Not exactly the new year's eve of lore but I could care. I enjoyed it.

The first DVD I threw in in 2008 was disc 1 of volume 1 of the Young Indiana Jones Chronicles. I never caught the series the first time and I liked what I saw. Nice production value. The series is definitely not the the movies but then I didn't really expect them to be. I hear they get better when the dude from the Boondock Saints plays Indy instead of the little kid. Guess I'll have to wait and see. But overall, worthwhile. Maybe I'll write more on this series later.

So here it is. My first blog post of 2008 or ever. I wanted to wait until January 1st to write anything for no other reason then it seemed right. The point of this is to help me write more. I read somewhere that writing in a diary or a blog or whatever will help your writing on other projects. We'll see how this theory works. Currently I'm writing a screenplay about a trucker and zombies. I know, I know, real highbrow stuff. We'll see how fast I plow through it. Feel free to ask me how it's going.

Finally I would like to close this first blog post on new years day with one of my favorite quotes. It's full of optimism and hope and something to keep in mind during the upcoming year.

"All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible."

-T.E. Lawrence