Tuesday, April 3, 2012
The Dorito Taco
Dorito taco: Not bad at all. The Dorito part of it is so subtle it's almost underplayed, coming out more as an aftertaste than another flavor to the taco itself, but it in no way detracts from the taco's taconess. If it didn't exist nothing would be lost, but it's certainly a new taste to a classic taco worth trying at least once.
Monday, September 19, 2011
Deus Ex: Human Revolution - Conspiratorially Good
In 2000, Warren Spector helmed a masterpiece ship into the lochs of gaming history. Deus Ex was the recipient of numerous Game of the Year awards, and universally praised by critics and gamers alike. Offering gameplay beyond the standard run-n-gun variety, the game threw players into a wide assortment of situations and gave them their choice as to how they tackled the situation. In every encounter, it was possible to gear up for, and attempt, to start a third world war, or decide to stealthily creep through back doors and vents, remaining unseen and unknown. Aside from choosing a plan of attack, and whether to kill or leave enemies unharmed, if a little less conscious, players could choose and upgrade several incredibly useful augmentations and skills that proved incredibly useful. Supporting all this choice-laden gameplay was a rich story full of double- and triple-crosses, among other twists and turns, such as modern-day conspiracies about the Illuminati and other secret factions warring over control of the world’s population. With everything so masterfully executed and the game so absolutely chalk full of details a player could run through several playthroughs and still discover brand new things they hadn’t noticed the previous four times, it’s no wonder the game was a phenomenal success, often regarded as one of the absolute best games of all time. Obviously, making a sequel would be an incredible undertaking.
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Criminal Flaws Don't Lock Up L. A. Noire
Calls rain in from all over the city, like drops of blood running through a dying man’s fingers, clutching at his newfound chest wound. In Central, a hit-and-run leaves the victim splattered across the road, bloody skidmarks as his life comes to a screeching halt. A few blocks away, a hopeful Hollywood starlet is found battered, bloodied, and beaten in a park, her dreams having bled dry long before the warm dawn sun found her cool dead body. Across town, a family of four burned alive in their house overnight. The American Dream, up in smoke. Somewhere in Hollywood, two jazz musicians overdosed on some smuggled drugs. Cool cats getting colder by the second.
All these modern horror stories are the pulp on the pages of L. A. Noire, Rockstar’s new crime-themed sandbox game. In this twist to Rockstar’s usual gameplay formula, you play on the law’s side of the law, assuming the role of Detective Cole Phelps, a Pacific Theater World War II veteran come back to police the streets of Los Angeles. Starting out as a beat-cop, you quickly move up to detective work, taking cases at four desks: traffic, arson, vice, and homicide. At each desk, the aforementioned stories start only half-told, and it’s up to you and some keen, if sometimes questionable, detective work to fill in the gaps and make the partial stories whole.
All these modern horror stories are the pulp on the pages of L. A. Noire, Rockstar’s new crime-themed sandbox game. In this twist to Rockstar’s usual gameplay formula, you play on the law’s side of the law, assuming the role of Detective Cole Phelps, a Pacific Theater World War II veteran come back to police the streets of Los Angeles. Starting out as a beat-cop, you quickly move up to detective work, taking cases at four desks: traffic, arson, vice, and homicide. At each desk, the aforementioned stories start only half-told, and it’s up to you and some keen, if sometimes questionable, detective work to fill in the gaps and make the partial stories whole.
Saturday, September 4, 2010
Fewer things are more fun than a blood-soaked Machete!
Machete originally started as a one-off joke trailer for Grindhouse. That trailer was ridiculous. And awesome. And now, it’s been made into a fully fledged movie. Which is ridiculous. And awesome. Nearly every conceivable facet of this movie put a massive grin on my face as I chuckled and chortled and outright laughed at it, enjoying the whole ride.
First and foremost, it should be noted that this movie is intentionally “bad.” The acting is WAY over the top, the action is WAY over the top, and the story is just about as loose as the women in it. But all of this rolls together into something so incredibly kick-ass that any “flaws” in the movie aren’t flaws at all. It’s all an intentional homage of the old grindhouse movie style in which ultra-violence was status quo, women barely wore clothes, and exploitation was awesome.
Danny Trejo stars as the titular Machete, an ex-Mexican Federale. He’s after a drug kingpin in Mexico when the film starts, and within five minutes there’s over a dozen bodies (though not whole bodies) lying around. Machete storms a bar in an attempt to rescue some damsel in distress (who happens to be a very naked damsel) and we find out where he got his namesake. Instead of using a gun, he just goes room to room lopping off bad guys’ heads, arms, legs, ears, noses, everything and anything he can. Eventually he’s helpless in the hands of bad guy numero uno Torrez, played by none other than Steven Seagal. Anyone (and I mean literally ANYONE) could do a better fake-Mexican-accent than Steven did, but they couldn’t do it as convincingly bad as he did. And his entire performance during the course of the movie is pure gold-plated gold.
Torrez gives Machete the ultimate cause for revenge and then leaves him in a dire situation we never see the resolution of due to the sudden title sequence, complete with massive amounts of film scratches. Honestly, it’s probably fair to assume Machete just got out of it by sheer bad-assery alone. Either way, the title sequence ends and we find ourselves three years later, introduced to two more of our man villains. Von Johnson (Don Johnson), the leader of a local vigilante militia dead set on keeping illegal Mexicans out of the country, and Senator McLaughlin (Robert De Niro), a politician who is ardently campaigning for harsher immigration policies, including a massive, electrified, border fence. We learn that these two men are very evil when they catch a Mexican couple crossing the border and they execute both the pregnant woman, and the young man she was with. There’s no deep political ideology or philosophical debate on what’s right and what’s wrong here, it’s just straightforward “They just shot a pregnant lady in the baby!” evil here.
This takes us to Machete’s current state in a day labor camp with a bunch of illegal aliens, run by Luz (Michelle Rodriguez), who resides in a taco truck and is constantly harassed by immigration agent Sartana (Jessica Alba). Through a fight Machete gets noticed as the one-bad-mother that he is and is hired by a mysterious suit, Booth (Jeff Fahey), to assassinate Senator McLaughlin. Of course this all goes wrong and the movie kicks it into a second overdrive. Machete is now hunted by just about everyone in the film and is on the run while he goes after those who betrayed him (D. All of the above). What follows is more violent than a lot of horror films, and oh my God is it great.
Not to ruin any of the surprises Machete has in store, but Machete himself has a tendency to use the body parts of other people for other uses than they were originally planned for. He also has a penchant for using blades of all sorts up close and personal, although he does make hilarious use of some other implements, notably a weed whacker. The poor goons he chops to bits the whole movie through aren’t standard faceless thoroughfare either. There are a handful of reoccurring grunts that provide constant laughs.
Eventually minor characters are introduced later, such as Machete’s brother, a priest with shotguns played by Cheech Marin, or Booth’s sluttier than slutty daughter (Lindsay Lohan) and although they’re incredibly short parts, they play them perfectly. There’s even a hitman hired to take out Machete and the advertisement for him lists “1-800-hitman” as the number to call. The absurdity of Marin’s priest-who-was-a-killer-but-now-reluctantly-kills-again or Lohan’s delinquent daughter who orchestrates a threesome with her mother and the gardener to further her porn site are really what sells them. The fact that all the characters in the film are ridiculously exaggerated is the icing to the bad acting cake.
Equally as awesomely overdone is the rampant nudity and sex. Within minutes of opening Machete slings a nude woman over his shoulder. He’s rescued at one point by Luz, who, in effort to see if the man lives up to the legend, hops on Machete. He has that aforementioned threesome with Lohan and her mother. And, in the wake of a drunken Jessica Alba, proceeds to decline her bed, only to be swayed by her begging and begrudgingly lies with her.
Machete is a great, stupid movie. To sum it up in a single shot from the movie itself, Machete jumps a chopper motorcycle over a massive explosion while blasting two dozen bad guys with the CHAINGUN MOUNTED ON HIS MOTORCYCLE. There’s rampant nudity, most shots have copious amounts of dismemberment and blood, and its execution is impeccable. Machete is probably the most bad-ass summer action movie so far this summer, a strong claim concerning its competition. Run, don’t walk, to go see, MACHETE!
First and foremost, it should be noted that this movie is intentionally “bad.” The acting is WAY over the top, the action is WAY over the top, and the story is just about as loose as the women in it. But all of this rolls together into something so incredibly kick-ass that any “flaws” in the movie aren’t flaws at all. It’s all an intentional homage of the old grindhouse movie style in which ultra-violence was status quo, women barely wore clothes, and exploitation was awesome.
Danny Trejo stars as the titular Machete, an ex-Mexican Federale. He’s after a drug kingpin in Mexico when the film starts, and within five minutes there’s over a dozen bodies (though not whole bodies) lying around. Machete storms a bar in an attempt to rescue some damsel in distress (who happens to be a very naked damsel) and we find out where he got his namesake. Instead of using a gun, he just goes room to room lopping off bad guys’ heads, arms, legs, ears, noses, everything and anything he can. Eventually he’s helpless in the hands of bad guy numero uno Torrez, played by none other than Steven Seagal. Anyone (and I mean literally ANYONE) could do a better fake-Mexican-accent than Steven did, but they couldn’t do it as convincingly bad as he did. And his entire performance during the course of the movie is pure gold-plated gold.
Torrez gives Machete the ultimate cause for revenge and then leaves him in a dire situation we never see the resolution of due to the sudden title sequence, complete with massive amounts of film scratches. Honestly, it’s probably fair to assume Machete just got out of it by sheer bad-assery alone. Either way, the title sequence ends and we find ourselves three years later, introduced to two more of our man villains. Von Johnson (Don Johnson), the leader of a local vigilante militia dead set on keeping illegal Mexicans out of the country, and Senator McLaughlin (Robert De Niro), a politician who is ardently campaigning for harsher immigration policies, including a massive, electrified, border fence. We learn that these two men are very evil when they catch a Mexican couple crossing the border and they execute both the pregnant woman, and the young man she was with. There’s no deep political ideology or philosophical debate on what’s right and what’s wrong here, it’s just straightforward “They just shot a pregnant lady in the baby!” evil here.
This takes us to Machete’s current state in a day labor camp with a bunch of illegal aliens, run by Luz (Michelle Rodriguez), who resides in a taco truck and is constantly harassed by immigration agent Sartana (Jessica Alba). Through a fight Machete gets noticed as the one-bad-mother that he is and is hired by a mysterious suit, Booth (Jeff Fahey), to assassinate Senator McLaughlin. Of course this all goes wrong and the movie kicks it into a second overdrive. Machete is now hunted by just about everyone in the film and is on the run while he goes after those who betrayed him (D. All of the above). What follows is more violent than a lot of horror films, and oh my God is it great.
Not to ruin any of the surprises Machete has in store, but Machete himself has a tendency to use the body parts of other people for other uses than they were originally planned for. He also has a penchant for using blades of all sorts up close and personal, although he does make hilarious use of some other implements, notably a weed whacker. The poor goons he chops to bits the whole movie through aren’t standard faceless thoroughfare either. There are a handful of reoccurring grunts that provide constant laughs.
Eventually minor characters are introduced later, such as Machete’s brother, a priest with shotguns played by Cheech Marin, or Booth’s sluttier than slutty daughter (Lindsay Lohan) and although they’re incredibly short parts, they play them perfectly. There’s even a hitman hired to take out Machete and the advertisement for him lists “1-800-hitman” as the number to call. The absurdity of Marin’s priest-who-was-a-killer-but-now-reluctantly-kills-again or Lohan’s delinquent daughter who orchestrates a threesome with her mother and the gardener to further her porn site are really what sells them. The fact that all the characters in the film are ridiculously exaggerated is the icing to the bad acting cake.
Equally as awesomely overdone is the rampant nudity and sex. Within minutes of opening Machete slings a nude woman over his shoulder. He’s rescued at one point by Luz, who, in effort to see if the man lives up to the legend, hops on Machete. He has that aforementioned threesome with Lohan and her mother. And, in the wake of a drunken Jessica Alba, proceeds to decline her bed, only to be swayed by her begging and begrudgingly lies with her.
Machete is a great, stupid movie. To sum it up in a single shot from the movie itself, Machete jumps a chopper motorcycle over a massive explosion while blasting two dozen bad guys with the CHAINGUN MOUNTED ON HIS MOTORCYCLE. There’s rampant nudity, most shots have copious amounts of dismemberment and blood, and its execution is impeccable. Machete is probably the most bad-ass summer action movie so far this summer, a strong claim concerning its competition. Run, don’t walk, to go see, MACHETE!
The Last Exorcism is GOD DAMN (ha! pun!) awful
WARNING: This review contains graphic clichés like:
“The worst part about that movie was that I paid money for it” and
“Thank God this was the LAST exorcism!”
Allow me to wedge a personal complaint in this space before we truly begin. I am not a fan of scary movies. It’s not that they frighten me so bad that I become paranoid of miscarried evil twins or girls thrown down wells or door-to-door Jehovah’s Witnesses (scary enough as is) or any such number of things. It’s that I sit through them and in the end I feel cheated out of my time and potential entertainment value. That’s not to say I don’t enjoy some of them, but nine times out of ten I leave the theater rather annoyed that I didn’t take the option of “paint drying.” Chief among these hatreds are exorcism movies. They generally consist of a young girl around high school age making weird voices, doing odd movements, and pretending to be sweet and innocent one second and possessed another. They’re not nearly as scary as they are ridiculously hilarious and stupid. The Last Exorcism, however, lacks this unintended redeeming quality.
It opens up surprisingly strongly for an exorcism movie. It’s set up as a documentary to follow this lost-faith preacher who used to perform exorcisms but is now intent on showing them for the hoaxes they are. It’s yet another in a now too-long list of shaky-cam movies but for ninety-eight percent of the movie it’s nowhere near Cloverfield. It does a good job of establishing its documentary credit and it does a real good job of establishing the protagonist. However that’s where the good stops. After the initial exposition the plot becomes, “Here’s this letter asking for an exorcism I got, let’s go film it!” It uses a lot of historical references (to which I have no idea how much truth there is in them) to establish reasons for the belief of possession. It then follows the preacher through his exorcism ritual using mild science as the man behind the curtain. And, predictably, it fails.
Essentially, in this movie, the protagonist is basically against all the sorts of exorcists as you see in The Exorcism of Emily Rose. A lot of people subject to exorcisms are often killed as a result, and he’s out to show that they’re nothing more than scams and to save lives. To this end, he’s constantly trying to save the possessed girl from potential abuse or other maladies. His stalwart gooditude prevails throughout the film, as, as suspected, when facing true supernatural occurrences with good ol’ science and rational, he’s quick to get himself well in over his head in trouble he has no way of fighting. As I said, this is actually well done. He only once gives in to superstitious hooey, and is always approaching the situations in the film using his head. But even then, when there’s obvious bad going on, he still charges in blindly in an attempt to rescue the evil damsel in distress.
When I say “charges,” it should be noted that he could easily have been outmaneuvered, outflanked, and routed by an army of snails. The pacing of the movie is so incredibly dull and dreary that I almost fell asleep within the first forty-five minutes. It takes its sweet time to do anything. Excessive drawn out long cuts reminiscent of a high school video editing class are what this movie is really about. While this movie is trying to ground itself in reality with its documentary-style camera work and editing, even a real documentary is more exciting to watch than this. And as far as grounding itself in reality goes, it breaks the fourth wall by adding in music during “scary” parts that would not be in a documentary (forgivable considering the nature of the film), and by having titles and text placed over the film as though they were edited in during the “post” process, which is impossible granted the stereotypical “we are never ever getting this camera back” ending employed.
To be fair, the acting isn’t bad. It conveys realistic “why no, this is not a movie” well and there isn’t much apart from the ending where I wasn’t able to buy into the characters. Aside from that whole “possessed” thing. Concerning the characters themselves (and foregoing the “possessed” thing, as you know how I feel on that subject), they’re presented well. Everyone plays their part as they’re supposed to, although with any scary movies, there’s unintentional funny to be found everywhere. In one scene which was a “first-person possession” scene, I was laughing hysterically at the actions taking place.
Boiling it down to simpler points, this movie is so bad that to write more expanded paragraphs on it would simply reiterate the same points needlessly. It’s so bad that when I got home, I ripped up my ticket stub and defiantly threw it into the trashcan. Or at least I tried. The shards of pain missed the trashcan so I had to pick them up piece by piece. Even when I get refuge from this movie it still torments me. Had there been someone at the customer service desk of the theater I would have asked for a refund. It’s a two hour (feels like four) slog through an incredibly boring fake documentary setting about a ridiculous concept with the most utterly insane, random, and ridiculously stupid ending I can recall in recent memory. Hands down, this movie makes Jonah Hexx look like a prime candidate for sweeping the Oscars.
“The worst part about that movie was that I paid money for it” and
“Thank God this was the LAST exorcism!”
Allow me to wedge a personal complaint in this space before we truly begin. I am not a fan of scary movies. It’s not that they frighten me so bad that I become paranoid of miscarried evil twins or girls thrown down wells or door-to-door Jehovah’s Witnesses (scary enough as is) or any such number of things. It’s that I sit through them and in the end I feel cheated out of my time and potential entertainment value. That’s not to say I don’t enjoy some of them, but nine times out of ten I leave the theater rather annoyed that I didn’t take the option of “paint drying.” Chief among these hatreds are exorcism movies. They generally consist of a young girl around high school age making weird voices, doing odd movements, and pretending to be sweet and innocent one second and possessed another. They’re not nearly as scary as they are ridiculously hilarious and stupid. The Last Exorcism, however, lacks this unintended redeeming quality.
It opens up surprisingly strongly for an exorcism movie. It’s set up as a documentary to follow this lost-faith preacher who used to perform exorcisms but is now intent on showing them for the hoaxes they are. It’s yet another in a now too-long list of shaky-cam movies but for ninety-eight percent of the movie it’s nowhere near Cloverfield. It does a good job of establishing its documentary credit and it does a real good job of establishing the protagonist. However that’s where the good stops. After the initial exposition the plot becomes, “Here’s this letter asking for an exorcism I got, let’s go film it!” It uses a lot of historical references (to which I have no idea how much truth there is in them) to establish reasons for the belief of possession. It then follows the preacher through his exorcism ritual using mild science as the man behind the curtain. And, predictably, it fails.
Essentially, in this movie, the protagonist is basically against all the sorts of exorcists as you see in The Exorcism of Emily Rose. A lot of people subject to exorcisms are often killed as a result, and he’s out to show that they’re nothing more than scams and to save lives. To this end, he’s constantly trying to save the possessed girl from potential abuse or other maladies. His stalwart gooditude prevails throughout the film, as, as suspected, when facing true supernatural occurrences with good ol’ science and rational, he’s quick to get himself well in over his head in trouble he has no way of fighting. As I said, this is actually well done. He only once gives in to superstitious hooey, and is always approaching the situations in the film using his head. But even then, when there’s obvious bad going on, he still charges in blindly in an attempt to rescue the evil damsel in distress.
When I say “charges,” it should be noted that he could easily have been outmaneuvered, outflanked, and routed by an army of snails. The pacing of the movie is so incredibly dull and dreary that I almost fell asleep within the first forty-five minutes. It takes its sweet time to do anything. Excessive drawn out long cuts reminiscent of a high school video editing class are what this movie is really about. While this movie is trying to ground itself in reality with its documentary-style camera work and editing, even a real documentary is more exciting to watch than this. And as far as grounding itself in reality goes, it breaks the fourth wall by adding in music during “scary” parts that would not be in a documentary (forgivable considering the nature of the film), and by having titles and text placed over the film as though they were edited in during the “post” process, which is impossible granted the stereotypical “we are never ever getting this camera back” ending employed.
To be fair, the acting isn’t bad. It conveys realistic “why no, this is not a movie” well and there isn’t much apart from the ending where I wasn’t able to buy into the characters. Aside from that whole “possessed” thing. Concerning the characters themselves (and foregoing the “possessed” thing, as you know how I feel on that subject), they’re presented well. Everyone plays their part as they’re supposed to, although with any scary movies, there’s unintentional funny to be found everywhere. In one scene which was a “first-person possession” scene, I was laughing hysterically at the actions taking place.
Boiling it down to simpler points, this movie is so bad that to write more expanded paragraphs on it would simply reiterate the same points needlessly. It’s so bad that when I got home, I ripped up my ticket stub and defiantly threw it into the trashcan. Or at least I tried. The shards of pain missed the trashcan so I had to pick them up piece by piece. Even when I get refuge from this movie it still torments me. Had there been someone at the customer service desk of the theater I would have asked for a refund. It’s a two hour (feels like four) slog through an incredibly boring fake documentary setting about a ridiculous concept with the most utterly insane, random, and ridiculously stupid ending I can recall in recent memory. Hands down, this movie makes Jonah Hexx look like a prime candidate for sweeping the Oscars.
Friday, August 13, 2010
Hang On to The Expendables
I fully well went into the theater expecting The Expendables to be a really stupid, pretty bad, “shit done blowed up!” action movie. And I was most definitely right about the last part. However, concerning the first two, I was dead wrong. If you’ve seen a trailer for this movie, you know it’s basically the idea that if you take every single action star you can find and put them in one movie, you’ll get something pretty kickass. The result is a Reese’s peanut butter cup covered in peanut butter and chocolate; it’s good-wrapped goodness you’d expect to be hard to swallow but it actually goes down really well.
The plot is pretty thin, but it’s fleshed out for what it is. It’s like construction paper really. No, it won’t hold up a lot of weight if you put some on it, but it wasn’t meant to. Some evil dictator in some South American island is evil, and these guys go out to stop him. For what it is (and isn’t) it pulls off the plot fairly well. There are a few twists and turns but nothing you can’t see when you queue up for the roller coaster.
The acting is, surprisingly, well done. It’s not going to win any Oscars, but it’s an action movie, and since the cast are veteran action movie actors (or wrestlers) they can act their rolls well enough to service the parts. One weak point I’d point out is in Mickey Rourke’s part. He was cast to play the hollowed, war-weary, housewife member of the group who stays home and provides the stereotypical, “war is bad and it makes me sad inside” character that gives the rest of the group a moral home base so they can do the base running with explosions. Another weak point was Dolph Lundgren’s character, who was supposed to be the mad dog, tugging and pulling on its leash. His portrayal of the role was underwhelming but the role itself is most likely to blame.
As far as the characters of the movie go, I enjoyed all but Dolph’s. Sylvester Stallone plays the old-but-not-too-old-to-kick-ass veteran leader of the team. He does this well and, as with almost every other actor and their respective roles, manages to fatten up a flat part. Jason Statham plays the second in command and provides the young attitude to combat Stallone’s old attitude. Throughout the movie they have a mild back and forth contest of who’s badasseder. Providing the background roles are Jet Li, Randy Couture (who is almost absent from the film), and, stealing the show wonderfully, Terry Crews. Eric Roberts is a good bad guy, David Zayas is a good dictator-turned-softy, and Steve Austin is good muscle. Giselle Itié is a good leading lady and despite having a fairly small part, she fills it well and brings a strong female character, something most fiction tends to lack. It’s nice to know she doesn’t just roll over when the bad guys point a gun at her and it takes more than a slap to take her down. In another nice turn, all of the good guys, and even some of the bad guys aren’t misogynistic. Eric Roberts’ character won’t strike Giselle Itié’s character, and Jason Statham sees his 90-seconds-of-screentime girlfriend has a bruise from her new boyfriend and proceeds to beat the hell out of him and make a ball joke while he’s at it.
And that’s a lot of what this movie is. Not ball jokes, but balls. There’s so much machismo and testosterone in this movie I swear that the cameras were operated by giant testicles. And while a lot of times that lends itself to a movie screaming at the audience, “LOOK HOW COOL I AM AREN’T I COOL YOU LOVE ME LOVE ME I WANT YOUR LOVE I’M AWESOME,” this movie is actually just cool by its own merit and doesn’t force its coolness down your throat. As I mentioned, shit blows up, and really well. For an action movie about impossible action it manages to keep suspension of disbelief most of the time. It opens up with the crew performing a hostage rescue and it quickly breaks that suspension with some shoddy night vision effects and them treating a delicate hostage rescue like a shooting gallery, opening fully automatic fire on a cargo hold full of hostages and yet never hitting one. Apart from that there isn’t a whole lot that leaves you “waitaminute”ing. The only qualm I had was that with such cool night vision technology, near the end of the movie Stallone goes barreling down a hallway with a flashlight mounted on his gun, very much advertising his presence and position in a supposed stealth infiltration. But apart from minor nitpicks like that, this movie holds together when it comes to blowing things apart. Terry Crews has a shotgun that literally makes things explode when he shoots them, and even though the film tries to explain this, and even does so in a manner that you don’t question in a film of this caliber, it’s just much, MUCH more fun to imagine that Terry Crews has a shotgun that makes things explode. Also, as a little known fact, Terry Crews actually brought Old Spice from his endorsement deal with him onto set, and since that day kicking ass was up by thirty percent.
And despite how much of this movie is about things being taken apart by large explosions, there’s actually as much, if not more fisticuffs being thrown around. Here’s where the casting really shows off because there’s a mix of styles going on in the melee combat. You have Stallone’s barroom brawling, Steve Austin’s wrestling, Jet Li’s kung-fu, Statham’s quick knife-y skills, and then they all mix together at some points.
At the end of it all, The Expendables is a really fun action-packed ride. Despite being ridiculously thin in plot (unlike the necks, of which there are none in this movie) if you look at it as a snowflake instead of just cut up construction paper, you’re going to love watching things go boom. Oh, and the soundtrack is just as kickass.
The plot is pretty thin, but it’s fleshed out for what it is. It’s like construction paper really. No, it won’t hold up a lot of weight if you put some on it, but it wasn’t meant to. Some evil dictator in some South American island is evil, and these guys go out to stop him. For what it is (and isn’t) it pulls off the plot fairly well. There are a few twists and turns but nothing you can’t see when you queue up for the roller coaster.
The acting is, surprisingly, well done. It’s not going to win any Oscars, but it’s an action movie, and since the cast are veteran action movie actors (or wrestlers) they can act their rolls well enough to service the parts. One weak point I’d point out is in Mickey Rourke’s part. He was cast to play the hollowed, war-weary, housewife member of the group who stays home and provides the stereotypical, “war is bad and it makes me sad inside” character that gives the rest of the group a moral home base so they can do the base running with explosions. Another weak point was Dolph Lundgren’s character, who was supposed to be the mad dog, tugging and pulling on its leash. His portrayal of the role was underwhelming but the role itself is most likely to blame.
As far as the characters of the movie go, I enjoyed all but Dolph’s. Sylvester Stallone plays the old-but-not-too-old-to-kick-ass veteran leader of the team. He does this well and, as with almost every other actor and their respective roles, manages to fatten up a flat part. Jason Statham plays the second in command and provides the young attitude to combat Stallone’s old attitude. Throughout the movie they have a mild back and forth contest of who’s badasseder. Providing the background roles are Jet Li, Randy Couture (who is almost absent from the film), and, stealing the show wonderfully, Terry Crews. Eric Roberts is a good bad guy, David Zayas is a good dictator-turned-softy, and Steve Austin is good muscle. Giselle Itié is a good leading lady and despite having a fairly small part, she fills it well and brings a strong female character, something most fiction tends to lack. It’s nice to know she doesn’t just roll over when the bad guys point a gun at her and it takes more than a slap to take her down. In another nice turn, all of the good guys, and even some of the bad guys aren’t misogynistic. Eric Roberts’ character won’t strike Giselle Itié’s character, and Jason Statham sees his 90-seconds-of-screentime girlfriend has a bruise from her new boyfriend and proceeds to beat the hell out of him and make a ball joke while he’s at it.
And that’s a lot of what this movie is. Not ball jokes, but balls. There’s so much machismo and testosterone in this movie I swear that the cameras were operated by giant testicles. And while a lot of times that lends itself to a movie screaming at the audience, “LOOK HOW COOL I AM AREN’T I COOL YOU LOVE ME LOVE ME I WANT YOUR LOVE I’M AWESOME,” this movie is actually just cool by its own merit and doesn’t force its coolness down your throat. As I mentioned, shit blows up, and really well. For an action movie about impossible action it manages to keep suspension of disbelief most of the time. It opens up with the crew performing a hostage rescue and it quickly breaks that suspension with some shoddy night vision effects and them treating a delicate hostage rescue like a shooting gallery, opening fully automatic fire on a cargo hold full of hostages and yet never hitting one. Apart from that there isn’t a whole lot that leaves you “waitaminute”ing. The only qualm I had was that with such cool night vision technology, near the end of the movie Stallone goes barreling down a hallway with a flashlight mounted on his gun, very much advertising his presence and position in a supposed stealth infiltration. But apart from minor nitpicks like that, this movie holds together when it comes to blowing things apart. Terry Crews has a shotgun that literally makes things explode when he shoots them, and even though the film tries to explain this, and even does so in a manner that you don’t question in a film of this caliber, it’s just much, MUCH more fun to imagine that Terry Crews has a shotgun that makes things explode. Also, as a little known fact, Terry Crews actually brought Old Spice from his endorsement deal with him onto set, and since that day kicking ass was up by thirty percent.
And despite how much of this movie is about things being taken apart by large explosions, there’s actually as much, if not more fisticuffs being thrown around. Here’s where the casting really shows off because there’s a mix of styles going on in the melee combat. You have Stallone’s barroom brawling, Steve Austin’s wrestling, Jet Li’s kung-fu, Statham’s quick knife-y skills, and then they all mix together at some points.
At the end of it all, The Expendables is a really fun action-packed ride. Despite being ridiculously thin in plot (unlike the necks, of which there are none in this movie) if you look at it as a snowflake instead of just cut up construction paper, you’re going to love watching things go boom. Oh, and the soundtrack is just as kickass.
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
The Spider
This happened yesterday but I'm just now recovering from the shock, awe, and utter terror to just now write about it.
So yesterday, I woke up around 10AM. People were already gone for work so it was just me, alone, in the house. Or at least that's what I thought. I take my shower and as I turn off the water I open up the curtain. Well I see this dot on the ground and as I shift my gaze towards it I discover, quite to my dismay, that it's a spider about the size of a quarter. And it's just staring at me. Being rather defenseless (as I tend to shower defenseless) I froze for a brief moment, staring into its eyes staring into my soul. I could see thoughts of blood red murder coursing through its spidery head. One wrong move and it'd make its own move, killing me and doing unspeakably horrible things to my once youthful and living body.
With neither of us willing to place forth the first move in our deadly game I decided to inspect it a little closer. I bent down slightly, making sure to keep my face well out of range of its acidic and toxic webbing. Upon my slightly closer inspection I noticed it had what appeared to be tufts of hair upon its abdomen. I thought it was certainly odd to see a spider of that size that fuzzy but didn't think any further on the matter, lest I drop my guard and leave myself open for a killing blow. I straightened up, quickly grabbed my towel, sidestepped out of the shower towards the door, and went and grabbed a shoe. I came back and much to my surprise and alarm the spider was exactly where I left it. It hadn't left to go set up an ambush, it hadn't gone onto the ceiling to drop down and bite the back of my neck and inject a neurotoxin, it had simply stayed put and stared at the tub I was once in.
So this was it. The final showdown. I raised my shoe up. I could see the murderous intent in its eyes, the look of pure rage and hatred, the wanton wanting of my destruction, to see every fiber of my being ripped into shred and torn again into smaller shreds, the ways it would eviscerate my cold and dead body when it finished its maniacal plan, the I squished it with my shoe. I thought I did. The spider shot across from where I hit it and stopped where the tub met the floor. And where it once stood quietly and intensely, there was now
A DOZEN LITTLE BABY SPIDERS RUNNING IN ALL DIRECTIONS!!! THE BIG ONE DIDN'T HAVE RANDOM TUFTS OF HAIR, IT HAD LITTLE BABY SPIDERS ON IT! I JUST ATTACKED THE SPIDER SCHOOL BUS AND LOOSED THEM UPON THE WORLD! ALL OF THEM, EACH AND EVERY ONE FULL OF HATRED AND INTENSE RAGE AS THE SCUTTLED ABOUT IN RANDOM FASHIONS TRYING TO TAKE COVER FROM MY NOW SMASHING SHOE!
At this point I was panicking and hitting the ground with my shoe as fast as I possibly could, each blow crushing one of the little bastards and sending the others in a new direction. When I finally finished killing all of them I looked back at the larger spider. It was still sitting there where it had moved to, battered and broken. I made short work of it and went to go grab a paper towel to pick up the mess they had made.
The truly terrifying part is that my first thought was to just grab the big one with a paper towel and kill it that way, which would have simply resulted in the little ones hopping off and RUNNING DOWN MY SPIDER-COVERED ARM AND KILLING ME IN A HORRIBLY GRUESOME DEATH!!!
So yesterday, I woke up around 10AM. People were already gone for work so it was just me, alone, in the house. Or at least that's what I thought. I take my shower and as I turn off the water I open up the curtain. Well I see this dot on the ground and as I shift my gaze towards it I discover, quite to my dismay, that it's a spider about the size of a quarter. And it's just staring at me. Being rather defenseless (as I tend to shower defenseless) I froze for a brief moment, staring into its eyes staring into my soul. I could see thoughts of blood red murder coursing through its spidery head. One wrong move and it'd make its own move, killing me and doing unspeakably horrible things to my once youthful and living body.
With neither of us willing to place forth the first move in our deadly game I decided to inspect it a little closer. I bent down slightly, making sure to keep my face well out of range of its acidic and toxic webbing. Upon my slightly closer inspection I noticed it had what appeared to be tufts of hair upon its abdomen. I thought it was certainly odd to see a spider of that size that fuzzy but didn't think any further on the matter, lest I drop my guard and leave myself open for a killing blow. I straightened up, quickly grabbed my towel, sidestepped out of the shower towards the door, and went and grabbed a shoe. I came back and much to my surprise and alarm the spider was exactly where I left it. It hadn't left to go set up an ambush, it hadn't gone onto the ceiling to drop down and bite the back of my neck and inject a neurotoxin, it had simply stayed put and stared at the tub I was once in.
So this was it. The final showdown. I raised my shoe up. I could see the murderous intent in its eyes, the look of pure rage and hatred, the wanton wanting of my destruction, to see every fiber of my being ripped into shred and torn again into smaller shreds, the ways it would eviscerate my cold and dead body when it finished its maniacal plan, the I squished it with my shoe. I thought I did. The spider shot across from where I hit it and stopped where the tub met the floor. And where it once stood quietly and intensely, there was now
A DOZEN LITTLE BABY SPIDERS RUNNING IN ALL DIRECTIONS!!! THE BIG ONE DIDN'T HAVE RANDOM TUFTS OF HAIR, IT HAD LITTLE BABY SPIDERS ON IT! I JUST ATTACKED THE SPIDER SCHOOL BUS AND LOOSED THEM UPON THE WORLD! ALL OF THEM, EACH AND EVERY ONE FULL OF HATRED AND INTENSE RAGE AS THE SCUTTLED ABOUT IN RANDOM FASHIONS TRYING TO TAKE COVER FROM MY NOW SMASHING SHOE!
At this point I was panicking and hitting the ground with my shoe as fast as I possibly could, each blow crushing one of the little bastards and sending the others in a new direction. When I finally finished killing all of them I looked back at the larger spider. It was still sitting there where it had moved to, battered and broken. I made short work of it and went to go grab a paper towel to pick up the mess they had made.
The truly terrifying part is that my first thought was to just grab the big one with a paper towel and kill it that way, which would have simply resulted in the little ones hopping off and RUNNING DOWN MY SPIDER-COVERED ARM AND KILLING ME IN A HORRIBLY GRUESOME DEATH!!!
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