Hellboy

Hellboy is one fun movie.

I've been sorely dissappointed with most comic book to move flicks in the past (well, I consider Spiderman about as much of a comic as Superman: Supersaturated.) This is one fits the bill through and through. From consistent action, sillyness, over the top necessities of a larger than life film, and even a satisfying ending.

Did I mention I liked the affects? The strong biblical and mythological references seemed a bit much, and Tam felt a lot of the action was cliche, but I didn't care.

I really liked that they kept in comic book factors such as "My kittens! Someone save them! ... they're all I have!"

I wonder if these comics are published only in comic books or graphic novels. As the IMDB review said, I'd like to find out more of the backstory. I didn't care that the villain lady didn't get much air time. She was too obnoxious bad-ass for my tastes. I hope there's a sequel. Would it be good if it were done by Sam Raimi. This one is tight enough that it would be easy to screw up, but many of the hero characters seem solid, and another round of villains would be fun. If I were a betting man I'd guess that they would pull a Highlander. Sucky sequal, decent III. By the time a TV series comes out there will be a completely brand new medium which will be well suited for a series. Maybe Terri Gilliam could pull it off. Hellboy: The road trip. Hellboy: The `nam years.

Looking forward to what Abe has to say on this one. Think movie-nighters should escelate this one.

The role fits the reality

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Nobody said spidey sense came with high school math aptitude.

F3ll0wsh1p of teh R1ng

F3ll0wsh1p of teh R1ng. Cool.

Thermostat for an old Volkswagen??

Yep. Finally got under my bus last Friday. Cleaned off a bunch of grime and took pictures of parts that baffled me or I'd want an expert opinion on later. One of those parts was, as I learned looking it up in a book later, was a Thermostat. A thermostat on an Air-Cooled car?!? Apparently it opens an air vent to cool the oil. Mine is stuck "open", which means it takes longer to warm up my engine, which I learned from this German Supply article, which notes that mine are no longer produced, but the beetle version can be modded to fit in mine. Small project #8.

Update: Sometimes it feels like my life is a whacked-out movie review, other times I just mis-direct my blog entries. :-}

For the rest of you, a teaser:



Sometimes it makes you wish your hand was simply a chainsaw. (I do want to play that video game.)

Farenheit 9/11

Ok, there's is a ton of debate going on over how false or how true this documentary is. I have heard convincing arguments from both sides over a few of the topics covered in this documentary, but a lot of the "debunking" of facts within here this film end up with "That issue has never been proven one way or the other 100% so it's a lie." or elevates into personal attacks on Moore himself. These arguements are the majority which I have read against this film which makes me cringe. It makes me cringe knowing that there are people out there who blindly follow our leadership without questioning whether or not choices being made are good for all of us as a whole. But I regress...this is a film review, not a political debate.

This documentary is done very well. I have never watched Roger & Me or Bowling For Columbine, but I will have to watch them now because this was brilliant. At one point, when first talking about the 9/11 attacks on the trade center, the screen goes black for what seems forever while all you hear is sirens and screams and explosions. I appreciate this because we all don't need to be fed that same footage that we have all seen over the last 3 years. We all know it by heart and even though the screen is blank, you know everyone in the audience is picturing the same thing you are. Except for that one kid that was sitting in front of me who kept looking back at the projector to see if there was something wrong with the film. The first half of the film goes over things such as the 2000 election, Bush's love of vacations, family ties to the Saudi royal family, various corporation links, and the "justification" for the war in Iraq. When we get to the second part of the film, we get a turn in style. The second half is mainly about the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Mostly Iraq, though. We end up following a lady from Michigan as she vehemently defends her son joining the military and backing the war to her fullest, to learning of her sons death and eventually questioning why the nation's children are really over in Iraq dying. I guess you could say that it gets pretty emotional.

It's eye-opening, sad, funny, disturbing, and I'll even say it...very patriotic. It's patriotic because there's nothing wrong with questioning our government. That's what makes America great and that's what this country was founded on. And that's what this film does a great job of; questioning the current Bush administration's true intentions. If we didn't question our governments decisions, we might as well just have a dictatorship. Or maybe just have ruling control passed down through the Washington family tree like some kind of royal family, because why would we need to vote?
As an aside; I highly doubt you'll ever see two similar reviews on this film. You take out of it what you will and everyone will take out something a little different then the next person.

Anyway, I give it a 4.5 thumbs up out of a possible 5 thumbs (and I'm still pissed that I decided to go see Spiderman 2 over this originally).

Media Talk, Dave Berkman

Sometimes on the way home from work I catch Dave Berkman on NPR's Media Talk.

I can't name another radio host I've ever heard to be entertaining, pallatable, and in such appropriately abrupt command as our pal Dave. Today he had on a retired FCC chairman. They seemed to carry a harmony similar to Az and Crowley in Good Omens. (Pardon me: HOLY CRAP TERRY GILLIAM IS DIRECTING THE MOVIE!

He's informed, smart and frank enough to cut off blather and spotlight the next point of view with the abruptness and odd humor of a seen-it-all yet still cares mortician.

This Shepherd-Express article provides an example and rings near to my annoyance at traffic noises in radio ads.

Scary Movie 3

Scary Movie 3 (2003) had a good preview. I think.

I saw half of Scary Movie 2 and thought this one might be an improvement, especially as I had seen both The Ring and Signs. I wanted to fall asleep. Leslie Nielson was even in it, whom I find silly humor in, but I suppose they didn't have license to regurgitate the Police Squad gads. Maybe it's a fun group movie. Worked as entertainment while rocking a screaming toddler to sleep, but after the tick-and-tieing (sorry, bad accounting metaphor) the original and new movie cross references (that's the one I was looking for) for half the movie I was bored.

Damn that discount debit rental card blinding me into renting crap because I've already paid for it on discount.

One plus one burnt one of those cool expand bigger than a head pie tin stove top popcorn popping disposable things out of five. (but-not-worth-gratuitous-dashes)

Timeline

This is going to be a short and sweet review.

I thought the book sucked, so I was intrigued at how bad the movie was going to be. It's horrible. All the better parts from the book were totally cut from the movie and Paul Walker is one of the worst actors I have ever seen (never watched 2 Fast 2 Furious, maybe that's his Monet on film).

Book: 2 out of 5 breakfast burritos
Movie: 1 out of 5 breakfast burritos

Spider-Man 2

I'll just come right out and say that it was merely and OK movie. I really wanted to just go see a fun comic book flick and I ended up moaning over technicalities the whole time.

First of all, I want the guy/girl who edited this to never work in Hollywood again. It was absolutely horrible. Numerous times we were forced to watch a repetitive action that could have been cut down to a fraction of the time it was spent on screen. I mean, I get that Peter Parker is clumsy and that there are mops in the closet. I don't need a full minute of it for me to get that point. I also understand what an uncomfortable silence is without needing an unnecessarily long time to reinforce this point after the dialog was finished. I don't know how many scenes there were like this offhand, but there were enough that just pissed me off and ruin the flow of the movie. And the Mary Tyler Moore bit was stupid and again, unnecessarily long.

The CGI was ok, but I expected a little bit better effects than the first movie. There's something about the way the CGI looks in both Spider-Man movies that bothers me a little. And I've noticed it in some other movies, too. I refer to it as the "Spider-Man effect" I swear I can tell any movie that uses the same graphics house that they use for the Spider-Man films because it just has a funky plastic-y look to everything. Normally stuff like that doesn't bother me, but it's like when you first notice the boxes around the ships when watching the original Star Wars trilogy. After you get it pointed out and take notice of it, you can't keep from seeing it from then on out.

The dialog itself was pretty horrible. I could tell in a few scenes that the actors had to fight though chunky lines that just didn't flow or sound natural. Maybe the pauses in between lines weren't right, I don't know...it was crappy.

As for the good, well...I guess the special effects were pretty cool, but there really wasn't much until the second half of the film. The first half started reminding me of The Matrix Reloaded with all talk and no action. I mean, we all know who Spider-Man is now, we don't need to flesh out the damn characters. I want to see some Good vs. Evil action! Lots of explosions and stuff. With that said, this movie is a lot less action and a lot more "chick flick". Normally I don't mind this, but not when it's done out of place. This is a Spider-Man movie, not Beaches for crying out loud.

Ok, so this is more of a rant than a review, but I was let down. So, in our non-standardized rating system, I give Spider-Man 2 a 3 out of 5 shiny bottlecaps.

Oh yeah. Watch for Bruce Campbell and the Evil Dead references; the best parts of the movie (ok..next to Doc Oc).