Saturday, January 31, 2009

Just a friendly reminder that the Kentucky Fried Movie is an excellent source of entertainment.

Monday, January 12, 2009

Waterworld

Spur of the moment decision got us to watch Waterworld on Saturday.

Myself, my wife and my awesome friend J got together for a nice dinner followed by a screening of this film.

It being all about liquid substances, we decided to play the Waterworld Drinking Game

I do think it made the film viewable, but good lord did we get schnockered.

Thoughts on the actual film (spoilers filled, but its a 13 year old movie so no complaining.)

I had actually never seen it. After doing so, I am not quite sure I needed to see it. It was a terrible terrible film. And I like bad movies. It was very disjointed and horribly acted* I think it was only released to help recoup the loss. It was basically The Road Warrior (i.e. Mad Max 2) on water. However, The Road Warrior was an awesome piece of scifi action, Waterworld was a bloated boring mess.

I know it's "just a movie" but when you base your whole premise on some unbelievable science, I find it hard to swallow. Lets pick a few nits shall we?

-So the bad guys operate out of the Exxon Valdez (regardless of the fact that in the real world that ship was sold and renamed after its incident) and have a finite supply of crude. HOW THE HELL DID THEY REFINE IT? Even if they had the ability to refine it... if this is supposed to be so far in the future, who would have the knowledge to do so?

-If paper is such a valuable resource, why do the bad guys constantly smoke cigarettes (which again, would be very very old)?

-If the dead people at the end of the movie are supposed to be the kids parents, how they hell did she leave the land?

-The kid can't swim? YOU LIVE IN A WORLD COVERED BY WATER. NOT KNOWING HOW TO SWIM IS NOT POSSIBLE. Fear of the water or not, that just seems a bit too out there.

-I do believe that even if all of the polar ice melted, it would not cover the entire land mass of the earth. Drastically change it? Sure.

-Oars on the Valdeez? I do believe that the displacement of such a huge vessel would negate any force produced by rowing.






*Kudos must be given to Dennis Hopper who is always good no matter the role (ex. Speed) and the little girl in the film. But when your 10 year old actress is the shining beacon of a good performance in the film you know you are in trouble.

Monday, January 5, 2009

What I watched on my vacation

With the snow we got here in Seattle my 2 weeks off at christmas turned into almost 3 weeks. Not being able to leave the house much (and it being too cold in the wood shop to do much of anything) we watched a fair amount of entertainment. Full reviews for most will be coming shortly but for now here is a list of what we watched with some brief commentary.

Farscape
We watched the entire run in a scant few weeks. All 88 episodes of the show and the 2 part finale mini series. I had forgotten how awesome this show truly was. It is a shame SciFi decided to be dicks and cancel the show prematurely.

Hancock
I enjoyed it alot more than I thought I would. A very acceptable entry into the whole Superhero genre.

Brokeback Mountain
Finally saw this. A great film but honestly, I couldn't understand Heath half the time and that kinda bugged me.

Natural City
Korean SciFi film. Basically a remake of Blade Runner (which usually I would be all pissy about) but they managed to create a believable world and society and make a compelling case. I can highly recommend this film.

Speed Racer
I would have to say this is quite honestly one of the greatest (if not the only) film taken from an anime. It pretty much gets everything about Speed Racer right. And it is quite gorgeous as well. I didn't think it would be this good (and I honestly expected to hate it) but this one got it right. I highly recommend it.

The Road to Wellville
I hadn't seen this film since I originally saw it when it came out. I remember enjoying it then and never understood the backlash the film got. Viewing it again I have determined that it is a cinematic masterpiece and should be required viewing. Or as a wise man once told me "it's the best possible movie you could make about colonic irrigation"

Tropic Thunder
I knew it was going to be funny but I had no idea how awesome it was. Words can't describe how awesome I found this film.

Legend of 1900
Can't believe I forgot this one. Great great great film. Tim Roth (who automatically equals awesome) stars as a man who was born, lives and never gets off a trans-atlantic passenger ship. A wonderful film that I highly recommend.