Archive for movies

Movie Man-athon: Transformers 2 and tons of other movie reviews

Posted in movies, reviews, Transformers with tags , , , on July 13, 2009 by Paxton

Steph was gone this past weekend so I made it my goal to watch as many movies as I can fit into like 3 days.  And not just any movies, I watched typical “guy” stuff that no self-respecting “lady” would ever sit down and voluntarily watch.  For you guys, I’ll do a quick review on 7 of the movies that I watched for the first time this weekend.  This doesn’t include Star Trek II and Star Trek III which I rewatched on Saturday and Sunday.  I also watched the first four episodes of 24:  Season 7. So, with my butt cramping from sitting on my sectional for 3 days, here are the reveiws of what I watched in my 72 hour Man-athon.

Transformers 2

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009) — Let’s start out with the biggest movie I saw this weekend, Giant F***ing Robots 2:  Megan Fox is Super Hot.  Wait, I mean, Transformers 2:  Revenge of the Fallen.  The title is irrelevant.  To illustrate this, I created the poster above because I thought it more honestly reflected the flat-out AWESOME-ness that is contained in this movie.  For weeks I’ve read how horrible this movie is.  The internet is lambasting it as terrible, and I was prepared to HATE it when I walked out of the theater.  The only reason I saw it was to make fun of it. However, despite the movie’s problems, it is fun to watch and delivers on the “giant robots battling” action.  Don’t get me wrong, there are plot holes large enough to drive a transforming truck through, but the shiny, battling robots and Megan Fox’s partial nudity is well worth it.  I hear you asking, “What type of plot holes, Pax?”  Well, apparently, certain Transformers can teleport.  “Wait, wha-?!”  Yes, Jetfire, who can transform into one of the fastest planes ever created, the SR-71 “Blackbird”, can instantaneously teleport.  Actually, so can The Fallen, who transforms into a spaceship. Why would they ever transform in order to travel?  Why not just always teleport there? Why walk to work when you can drive, you know what I’m sayin’? Doesn’t make sense. There’s also something else that was surprising.  The Twins; Mudflap and Skids.  There’s been a lot of controversy over these guys because they are perceived as being “racially insensitive” caricatures.  Are they racially offensive?  I can see the argument of them being racially offensive.  I know they were put in there for younger audience members to identify with, but damn. They were also considered comic relief, which this movie has a lot of.  It seemed this whole movie was funnier than the first one. Lots of action, lots of funny. Don’t think too hard about the problems.  Like teleporting robots or why they couldn’t use the metal shard to revive Optimus Prime like they did Megatron or why Bumblebee still can’t speak despite the fact he could at the end of the first movie. It’s all just too much to worry about when you have giant f***ing robots beating the crap out of each other in the desert. 3.5/5

Dune

Dune (1984) — Okay, as awesomely action filled as Transformers 2 was, this movie is that amount of awful.  Like horrendous on multiple levels.  If you’ve read the original Frank Herbert novel, then this movie will be offensive based on the MANY ridiculous changes David Lynch made to the novel’s story (Weirding Modules?!  Hawat has to milk a hairless cat for the antidote to the residual poison in his body?!  The Mentats’ hilariously long eyebrows?!  Paul magically makes it rain on Arrakis?!).  If you haven’t read the novel, then this is just an insanely boring movie with a half naked Sting staring at you for 30 minutes.  WTF happened between Herbert’s novel and this movie?  I read the book a few months ago and while it was a dense read, it was worth it.  The characters and events are richly textured and the world Herbert creates is fantastic.  Lynch should be f’n ashamed of himself and never been allowed to make another movie after this was released.  True, this book would be hard for anyone to make, but DAMN, Lynch, WTF?!  My eyes have actively declared war on me for making them watch this abomination.  If you are having trouble sleeping and haven’t read the book, watch this movie, you’ll be out like a light in 10 minutes, I promise.  If you have read the book, pretend this movie doesn’t exist.  For now until I die, this movie is dead to me.  I would give it a 0 but it was so bad it almost became entertaining in the same way watching a horrendous car wreck is entertaining. 1/5

Continue reading

Ghostbusters 25th Anniversary; New Video Game, New Movie, but no new books?

Posted in books, Ghostbusters, movies, pop culture with tags , , , , on July 2, 2009 by Paxton

So, this year is the 25th Anniversary of the movie Ghostbusters. Released in 1984, it has become a comedy classic.  There has been much buzz recently about the Ghostbusters franchise and several announcements and product releases that have got “Ghosties” (Ghostbusters fans) excited.

On June 16, the first Ghostbusters movie was released on Blu-Ray.

Ghostbusters Blu-ray

Also on June 16, a new video game called, appropriately, Ghostbusters: The Video Game was released for all the next generation console systems.

Ghostbusters video game

One of the things about this video game that excited fans of the movie was that it reunites most of the cast from the original movie for the first time since Ghostbusters II in 1989 (which was also released on June 16).  Returning to voice their characters are Harold Ramis (Egon Spengler), Dan Ackroyd (Ray Stantz), Ernie Hudson (Winston Zedmore) and even Bill Murray (Peter Venkman).  Also returning for the game are Annie Potts as Janine and William Atherton as Walter Peck.  Sigourney Weaver and Rick Moranis turned down the opportunity to return to voice their characters.

Ramis and Ackroyd wrote the script for the game and they both said that they treated the development of this game as if they were making a new Ghostbusters movie. Judging by online reviews, that commitment shows in the game’s play and storyline. I look forward to playing it on the PS3.

Ghostbusters III

When the actors reunited to voice their characters for the game, Bill Murray was quoted as saying he had a great time re-visiting the character of Venkman and working with his friends Ramis and Ackroyd. He also said he would consider returning to the Ghostbusters franchise in a new movie. That was big news as Murray has continually said for years that he would never do another Ghostbusters movie after the studio made so many changes to Part 2 that it was no longer the movie he signed on to make. Needless to say, Ramis and Ackroyd are in active development of a new Ghostbusters movie. Hopefully, it happens, I would love to see the group back together again.

Continue reading

Spockcation 2009: My adventures in Jacksonville with 12″ Spock

Posted in Florida, humor, Jacksonville, movies, Star Trek with tags , , , , , , , on June 30, 2009 by Paxton

Spockcation 2009

Spock arrived last week and we got to spend the weekend together. I showed him the sights of Jacksonville and we bonded. It was nice.

Eclectorama is going to post a few of my pictures from this weekend as he’s the Spockcation host. But I’ll go ahead and show you guys a few of the pics with some commentary. If you want to see more of these pics head to my Spockcation 2009 Flickr set. Click the below images to make them BIGGER.

Spock reads ST novelSpock reads MadSpock reads Mad 2

While waiting around for me to get home from work Spock had lots of time to read. Surprisingly, his reading choices did not deviate from reading about himself. The dude is a narcissist.

Continue reading

Spockcation 2009: Spock has arrived!!

Posted in humor, movies, random, Star Trek with tags , , , , , on June 24, 2009 by Paxton

Spockcation 2009

I posted back in April that I was a part of Eclectorama’s Spockcation 2009.  Spockcation 2009 involves a 12″ Spock action figure traveling abroad and getting his picture taken in tons of different cities.  As of two days ago, Spock has arrived at my place.  I’ll be spending the next week hanging out with him.  I have some fun places for us to visit.  Maybe we’ll visit the beaches and scope for chicks, maybe visit Jacksonville Memorial Stadium where the Jacksonville Jags play, maybe I’ll even challenge him to a drinking contest because we all know Vulcans can’t hold their liquor.  We’ll see where the week takes us.

It’s time to get rowdy like a 1st grade classroom.  I’ll post the pics of the aftermath of our Vulcan Olympics next week.

Spock's Arrival

Movie Flashback: Tim Burton’s Batman celebrates its 20 year anniversary today

Posted in Batman, movies, pop culture, reviews with tags , , , , , on June 23, 2009 by Paxton

Batman poster

20 Years ago today, June 23, 1989, Tim Burton’s first Batman film with Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson was released in theaters.

The release of this movie in 1989 was an event not seen probably since the release of Return of the Jedi in 1983. The merchandising and hype leading up to this movie was at near-Star Wars levels. There were daily news stories, TV specials, t-shirts, hats, posters, toys, product tie-ins etc.  The bat signal was seen everywhere.  People were talking about missing work to see it opening day.

Batman movie newspaper ad

I totally bought into the Batman hype that summer; hook, line and sinker.  I was so excited I bought the movie novelization and read it before I saw the movie.  I still have that novel as well as every other Batman movie novelization after it.

Batman Novelization

A Batman movie had been in development in some form or another since the late ’70s.  Superman co-writer Tom Mankiewicz wrote a first draft of what would become the modern Batman movie in 1980.  After the success of Pee Wee’s Big Adventure in 1985, Warner Bros asked Tim Burton to take over the Batman movie development.  Burton threw out Mankiewicz’s draft, wrote his own 30 page treatment and hired Sam Hamm to write the script.  However, due to a writer’s strike in the late ’80s, development dragged on and Sam Hamm had to leave the project.  Warren Skaaren was hired to finish the script.  The final script was green-lit in 1988 after the success of Beetlejuice at the box office.

Batman title card 1Batman card 2

Batman card 3Batman card 2

The Batman movie development went through many iterations before finally landing on the final script and cast; Michael Keaton, Jack Nicholson and Kim Bassinger. Here’s some behind the scene trivia for the movie:

Continue reading