Right…so I am not a HUGE LOTR fan. BUT, there is one thing that drew my ass to this movie and its sequel and this is it:
Hello! I'm a sucker for an Irishman. Must be the eyebrows, or something.
Yep, that did it.
I was at the theatre today checking trailers for Disney and this other woman was there for Paramount and she felt the dire need to sit next to me and talk to me. She decided to start yapping right when this trailer came on and I missed my dear Aidan Turner’s face. The one spot on the one trailer I wanted to watch and I missed it. Stupid lady. Whatever…here is it here.
I will admit that I like these movies but they aren’t the type of movie that I flock to; the fantasy genre isn’t my favorite. However, you throw someone in there that I absolutely adore and I will go. I’ve said it before, I will watch a movie about paint drying if it means that Guy Pearce will be involved. I’d probably do the same for this guy, I’m also glad they didn’t fug him up beyond the hair extensions. The man is way too pretty. Plus, I dig Martin Freeman.
I had to check some trailers today and lucky for me 90% of them were awful; and I got to see them several times! I’m the luckiest bitch in the country.
Here are all the delicious treats I got to enjoy today with stupid commentary:
G.I. Joe: Retaliation
You have all the pre-requisites of an American action movie. Explosions, all the time. Abundance of orange and blue because no one needs to be able to actually color their films with anything BUT orange and blue. Bad actors, pumped up to extremes with whey protein, barely able to choke out the horrible writing. A fight sequence where both sides, hanging from climbing gear, jump around and sword fight (yes, that happens). And…Bruce Willis? Wait. Bruce Willis? Was that really Bruce Willis? Why is Bruce Willis in this movie? I know he’s an action hero, but he’s a generally liked action hero who has also done more than action movies (or in the case of The Rock [he's still going by that for some stupid reason, right?] more than action movies and kids movies where he wears tights). The fact that he’s in this movie really dips it down. Oh…right, he was in that stupid movie with Tracy Morgan at some point, right? Yuck.
Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance
So this one has a lot of ‘splosions too. And compared to the last/first one, this looks decent. However, it’s still Ghost Rider and it’s still Nic Cage, so that’ll get you the exact result you’ll expect; a crappy Nic Cage movie with ‘splosions. It does have Idris Elba and some other people I quite like, but…Ghost Rider.
I think the storyline is that Ghost Rider has to stop the Devil or some crap from making a kid into something evil, or some shit. Plus…3D! So expect stupid shit flying at your damn face all the time. All.the.fucking.time.
The Hunger Games
Compared to the last series of movies adapted to the screen (think stupid sparkling vampires and constantly shirtless werewolves), this looks Oscar-worthy. Settle down, I didn’t say it was Oscar-worthy, just compared to the last series-adaptation, this looks decent.
Kids are picked by people from a spaceship to train and fight to the death. Guess which two fall in love? If you can’t, you are stupid.
The Devil Inside
Yay, another stupid exorcism film. I haven’t seen one of these since the last one. Just like the last one, this trailer opens with the age-old favorite “This is an actual 911 call” even though we know it is not an actual call. These people clearly are hoping that this will be the next stupid ‘Paranormal Acivity’ and after Googling it, that is exactly what the producers/writers or whoevers think. Please, please do not go see this so they make a thousand sequels like the aforementioned movie.
This movie is basically just like every other fake-documentary-horror film. It looks like the production cost was a few hundred dollars and they had no time to color correct. It’s inhabited by people that can barely act and someone is possessed and flails around on a bed. People scream. And, though this trailer doesn’t share the following, I am sure it’ll appear on a trailer soon enough: ‘Don’t miss the last 15 minutes’
Contraband
Of all these movies listed here, this one has GOT to be the most annoying and horrible trailer I saw today. My god! It’s like every other Marky Mark movie where he runs around with that bewildered look on his face for 120 minutes and the best part is that the trailer feels like it’s the whole two hours. It also takes over half the trailer to get to the damn plot, which is that someone kidnapped Marky Mark’s wife, of course. I don’t think you need to set up that he used to do some kind of contraband shit and went straight and now hugs his wife and has a family but, OH SHIT!, now he is forced to go back to save his wife. This movie probably has the top orange to blue ratio of any movie yet. The people are so orange that even the black people are orange. Terrible.
It’s always a good idea when starting out a trailer to use easy-to-follow words like: The Ocean and Vast and then to follow those simple words with ‘From Hasbro, the company that brought you Transformers’. It’s always, always, always a good idea to point out that the basis for your 2 hour long movie is a board game where you take turns trying to sink battleships with little red toy pegs. Always.
I remember the first trailer made it seem like, after the hip, young hotshot, gets off his sexy girlfriend on the beach and back onto the aircraft carrier, somehow a bunch of stupid alien spacecraft show up and literally start to play Battleship with the Navy, because, why not?
Let’s see what we get with this trailer:
- The ocean is vast and alien spacecraft hide in its depths.
- Everything is really, really blue and orange.
- A team has to check it out.
- The hot, young hotshot doesn’t follow advice and touches the stupid machine and things shoot out and start smashing all the buildings. People everywhere look slowly over their shoulders.
- A bunch of shit blows up. Everywhere.
On the plus side, at least there appears to be more in this trailer than just playing Battleship. Not much more, but more. Also, Skarsgard is still the best thing about this dumb movie and I can barely believe I’d entertain going to this movie just to see him…
Ah, the Ood. They are a particularly strange case for this list. On the one hand, they can be quite terrifying and on the other, they totally aren’t…kind of. What the hell does that mean? Let me tell you!
The Ood are a race of humanoid aliens that don’t “speak”, they communicate via telepathy using a little ball attached to a cord that runs to the rear of their brains. They originally had a hive mind but humans (of course) removed the hive mind and gave them the orbs so they could communicate while being enslaved. WHEE! On one episode we find the Ood being controlled by some kind of creature called the Beast which takes over them psychically and controls them. At another point we visit Ood Operations base and find a bunch of Ood suffering from some kind of red-eyed disease that turns some rabid and such. Turns out the Ood Brain that they were severed from had been telepathically communicating with the Ood and the rabidness and red-eyed experiences were a result of that subconsiousness grabbing control over the Ood once again. In a funny, and disturbing, incident the Ood servant for the man in charge of Ood Operations has been poisoning him by what he thinks is a hair tonic but is really some kind of Ood consciousness suspended in liquid. As such, the man turns into a damn Ood. Into.a.damn.Ood!
Okay, so I added them to this list because of the several times they have been used for evil or by evil or caused to become evil due to the fact that they can be controlled. Controlled even by their own hive brain which caused them to become angry, revengeful or patient to the point of poisoning their captor and turning him into one of them as punishment. To me, that is scary, plus they kind of look scary, but they are low on the list because they are, in essence, NOT evil.
**I’m capping this off with a giant SPOILERS! There will be SPOILERS ahead! If you haven’t watched Season 6 of Doctor Who, or any of Doctor Who, and are planning to, there will be SPOILERS in this post. If you don’t care about spoilers, then read on.**
There are TV shows that are amazing (LOST, Battlestar Galactica [2004 version], Boardwalk Empire) and there are show that just plain suck (Keeping Up With the Kardashians, Kate vs. 8 [whatever it's really called, I don't care], Jersey Shore). So where does Doctor Who fall in my listing, you ask? You probably wonder where I’d stick a show like this. Well, if you know my, you’ll know my love of Sci-Fi, so you can rightly guess that I’d put it under amazing.
What makes a show about a “man” from another planet who travels around in a time machine that looks like a blue Police call box so good? What makes a show that is generally family-friendly (but that can be so scary) so engrossing? Well, it’s partly the acting, which is astounding, but mostly it’s because of the stories. As cheesy as the cheesiest episode gets, it always goes back to the acting and the stories. You care about these characters, usually from the get-go. How hard it must be to create almost totally new characters every episode and to make the audience care about them. And yet, they do it week after week. Plus, they have to create a mythology storyline that runs through the season and the entire series, in some regards (River Song). That makes the show probably the best television series on the air right now.
As a little aside, I was really doubting Matt Smith as the new doctor. I don’t know why, I just really loved David Tennant and didn’t think anyone could take the cake to him. But I was SOOO wrong. Matt Smith is so charming, adorable and funny as the Doctor and you know what, bow ties are cool!
Part of the lure of the show is also the monsters, aliens and creatures that crawl in the darkness and in the corner of your eye. Those things you can’t quite see, but you know are there. This show is full of them. So, because I am now super-addicted to the show, I have decided to make periodical entries covering some of my favorite things on the show. First up: The scariest of the scaries. These will be things from the last 6.25 seasons. I have not finished all of the first half of season 6, so I am only going by the things that literally frightened me into not sleeping with the light off. I’m also only covering those found in the new series, because I’ve never seen the old series.
9. Daleks
EX-TER-MIN-ATE!
Right, so I know the Daleks are the Doctors most feared enemy, but I placed them at the bottom because they really don’t frighten me. I mean, they do, but not visually, at least. Plus, they get kind of annoying.
Basically, they are mutated, former-humanoid aliens that have tentacles and have to live inside the giant mechanical casings that are portrayed in the show. They hate anything not Dalek and fought the Time Lords in the Last Great Time War for the sake of all creation. After the war, all that was left was the destruction of Gallifrey (The Doctor’s home world), two Time Lords and a handful of Daleks. Here’s a link to read about the war, , if you are a giant nerd like me.
They are frightening, at least enough to be on my list, because they keep showing the fuck up. The Doctor thinks they’re gone, but they always come back. Most recently the Daleks fart back in time to WWII and create some new Daleks using pure Dalek DNA, so now we have a race of new, brightly colored super-Daleks.
“Ok, ok, ok…check it, check it…guys, are you ready? This will BLOW your minds, much like that actress blew you that one time for that roll. Ok, you remember Panic Bank, Panic Room and Panic Train? Yeah, yeah, yeah…I’m really high right now…yeah. You remember Air Force One and all that “Give me back my WIFE!” Alright, check it. Let’s blend them together, you ready, blend them together and we’ll get Harrison Ford, yeah? No? You’re shakin’ your heads here, already, I haven’t even finished this pitch yet. He won’t do it? You sure? Alright, alright, alright…let’s go with Ben Affleck? No? Ok…ok…who do you want? You think Nic Cage? With a different toupee? I gotta run to the bathroom…”
“Alright, I’m back…I’m ready for more. You? You ready? ALRIGHT! So, check it, this movie is about a guy, who makes money. Or steals it, or puts it in a safe where he has to use his finger to get in. Yeah! He’s married and that Twilighty-Burlesque guy also steals. We can have the man and the Twilighty guy work together, or steal together and I think we REALLY should make Twilighty guy have an affair with the wife. Nicole Kidman’s face emotes right? Yeah…yeah…she’ll do it, she owes you right? Cool! We can make them steal the daughter, like that episode of Family Guy or that movie Trapped; you guys use cartoons and other movies as the sole basis of stories now, right? Yes! Now, as a tagline we can use, “But what they don’t know, is that they’ll fight back!” YEAH! This is SO original! It’ll be even more original if we give Cage some nerdy glasses. At the end, he or she or the daughter can be the twist; they’re in on it ALL ALONG! YEAH!”
Execs: “Ok.”
This is how I imagine this pitch going down.
While we are on the subject of how stupid this movie looks, what the bloody hell is up with that poster? My god! It’s like someone was given the worst photos and this is how they made it look decent or someone who just learned Photoshop basics gave it a whirl. God damn! That’s bad! It almost looks like a cartoon!
I Don't Know What is Going On In the American Version of This Trailer!
What the fuck? Who edited this trailer? Reading the description I see it’s about a doctor whose wife is horribly burned in a crash and I assume dies, and he wants to create some kind of miracle skin that would have saved her. After many years, he develops it and needs a guinea pig, so he either uses some woman who has looked after him since he was born (I assume the elderly blond?) or some dark-haired chick who dances in a leotard in a museum while some dude licks the computer screen. Because that’s what the trailer shows.
Also, at some point some dude gets hosed down and strapped to the same table? Also, Banderas gets his ass kicked by the chick with a mask on, which I assume is the same woman whose image is being licked by the guy in the museum. Oh, and we all have guns! Look at all the guns we have and put in things and take out of things, like drawers and purses! And then some girl walks down a dark path and magically arrives at a store where she looks at the dress she’s wanted since she was a small child. I made that last part up because this trailer looks ridiculous. I’m sure this is just a bad Americanized trailer, but come on!
That won't steal your soul in the night, or anything
I’m going to start yip-yapping about Doctor Who, especially since my Facebook feed is covered with “FOOTBALL! FOOTBALL! FOOTBALL!”
I’ll have to re-watch last weeks killer episode, but I am going to start tonight with tomorrow nights episode, Night Terrors, and some trailers and goodies.
The episode is called Night Terrors and is about a little boy named George who is scared of everything. There are also creepy white-faced dolls and people getting pulled into piles of garbage bags in alleys, or something. Either way, it’s creepy as shit and I really can’t say that I won’t be trepidatious to watch it and then go to sleep.
Here is the trailer and at least one little featurette.
There was once a time when sound was but only a dream in movies…
In stark contrast to the dumb movie I just posted about comes ‘The Artist’. I heard about this movie back in May whilst dining with a friend in L.A. Being an immense fan of Old Hollywood I was intrigued and I can’t say I am any less intrigued after seeing the trailer for the movie.
Set in 1927, this original (especially in this time of remakes of everything from my childhood) tale is about silent movie star George Valentin, a Clark Gable/Fred Astaire/Gene Kelly-type movie star of the silent-film age, whose career is in decline as the age of silent films draws to a close. He meets and falls for a woman who then becomes a big star, presumably in the realm of the “talkies”.
It’s silent and in black and white, which will probably turn most people off, but of which I think gives it a real charm. It’s hard to go to a movie today where it isn’t in Dolby Digital Surround, blasting your ears off and a movie with a great heart-felt story with nothing but music playing and title cards to move you along in the story should be a welcome change.
If you’ve never seen the silent film, Der Letze Mann, I highly recommend it. It has a similar theme, but with wildly different careers.
Oh yay, ANOTHER torture porn movie! This time around we’ve left the cabin-in-the-woods/crazy-abused-weirdo scenario behind for the crazy-family/crazy-wife-abuser/crazy-rape-o scenario. It’s about time the dumbest genre evolves.
I am, of course, being completely sarcastic as I can’t stand these movies. I am also not a prude, but a movie about a pervert, wife-beating abuser out hunting and then finding a “feral” woman that he then captures and brings back to his home to string up in the basement/garage to rape and abuse, and to allow his family to rape and abuse, is not my idea of a good movie date. I’d honestly rather sit through the horrible Twilight “saga” again than watch another dumb movie where people get their fingers bitten off or someone gets raped by a broom handle; call me crazy.
