The Invasion

PLOT: While returning to Earth, a space shuttle explodes and the fragments bring an alien virus that recodes the human DNA. Psychiatrist Carol Bennell observes the modification of the behavior of one of her clients first, then in her former husband and finally in the population in general. Together with her Ben and researcher Dr. Stephen Galeano, they discover that the epidemic affects human beings while sleeping and that her son Ollie, who had chickenpox when he was a baby, is immune to the disease and may save mankind from the outbreak. [credit imdb]

This movie is a fantastic remake of the cult classic hit Invasion of the Body Snatchers. This remake stands out from all the others for quite a few reasons:

1) It doesn’t suck whereas all the others have (Sorry Philip Kaufman, I know you tried.) I mean, dear God, this movie has more bad remakes and sequels than American Ninja.

2) Nicole Kidman’s typical icy demeanor and bland acting actually make sense plot-wise and portrays her character realistically.

3) The story is adapted well for modern times and causes the viewer to really ponder whether or not the body snatcher’s offer of an emotionless human race is really all that bad. This is a very well made movie that surprised me immensely considering how almost every sci fi movie is terrible. If you've got NetFlix you should check it out.

Night Train

Night Train follows two passengers and a conductor on a train. When a mysterious man dies, they look into his luggage and find a strange wooden box. Inside of it, they each see treasures worth taking…and killing for. This movie was a great thriller, playing out with the charm of a classic Twilight Zone episode. It keeps you genuinely interested from start to finish. Night Train is a masterpiece of the ‘simple plan gone horribly wrong’ genre. The standout in this movie was definitely Leelee Sobieski. She proved that, although she may look a great deal like Helen Hunt, she won’t be stuck as a B actress in horrid movies like Twister. Leelee did an amazing job and Danny Glover put in a solid performance as always. We should all count ourselves lucky that he’s somehow still alive. I definitely recommend this movie. The story moves rapidly, the characters are well developed and Steve Zahn almost convinces me that he’s an actor. Definitely worth renting.

Fighting

Do you like hours of mumbling? Bad fight scenes? How about being extremely bored? If you answered yes to any of these, then Fighting is the movie for you.

Fighting is based around Shawn, a seemingly half-retarded conman who can fight well. He is taken under the tutelage of Harvey, a con man with a very gay voice who helps him enter into the world of underground fighting.

For a movie named Fighting, however, there is very little actual fighting in this movie. Instead, you get weak story played out by adults who don’t speak clearly or enunciate at all. You may as well watch 2 hours of NASCAR interviews. It’s the same thing, just less intelligent.

Perhaps the movie is called Fighting because, once the movie ends, you walk around in a daze for hours fighting with thoughts of suicide over the time you just wasted. There are really only two ways to get over Fighting. You’re going to walk in front of a bus or wind up joining a cult.

The Expendables (2010)

I’m a guy. So needless to say, when I heard about the insane cast for this movie, I was really excited to see it. Yet I’m also a poor man, so I ignored the fact that I wanted to see this until it came out on DVD. My friends, it was not worth the wait at all.

The ball was dropped so many times that you’d think Luc Longley was handling it. There were so many problems that it’s hard to know where to begin. So I’ll begin with the most painful and obvious: Stallone’s new Botox treatments make him look like Frankenstein made up of wax and leftover Ken doll pieces. His face is tighter than Nicole Kidman’s grip on her emotions. This is very distracting throughout the whole movie, especially when you get close-ups of his horrifying mug while the muscles beneath it struggle and strain to try to convey thoughtfulness, guilt and anger.

As long as we’re on the subject of Stallone, we might as well address his complete inability to write dialogue, which, last time I checked, was an important part of a movie. His attempts at humor are forced and hard to watch and really make the movie drag. The script is just trash all around. I realize that this is the case with most action movie scripts, but those other movies usually hide this with lots and lots of action. Which is what we were promised this movie would provide. Yet this isn’t so.

Although all of the action scenes were good, they were too short to be great. As quickly as they start, they finish and you are left craving more, which you never really get. Plus, the most pivotal moments in the action scenes are completely ruined by special effects that would make Ed Wood proud. When Stone Cold Steve Austin, the main thug in the movie, is set on fire, it looks like something straight out of a Final Fantasy video game. This completely killed any credibility the scene had.

In the same vein, when the evil mastermind finally gets his comeuppance, he gets a ridiculously computerized knife thrown through his back, making you laugh instead of cheer when he falls over dead.

These are my main qualms with the movie but there is much much more wrong here. So I will just take you through each person involved and tell you why they were terrible.

Jason Statham as Lee Christmas: Jason is the biggest badass in the movie. He has by far the best action sequences in movie and his acting is superb. Yet, in what I assume is a sad attempt by Stallone to feel better about his inability to act, he has Statham say the dumbest things I have ever heard. Almost every line that Statham delivers is an awkward joke, a failed pun or something incoherent. You don’t believe me? Then tell me what in the hell was even said at the end of the movie. I dare you to recite that poem and explain to me why it was put into the movie. My only other problem with the character Lee Christmas, besides the name, is his weapon of choice: the throwing knife. It’s an awesome weapon and he uses it marvelously. Yet he keeps on losing knife throwing contests to Mickey Rourke. How come he can nail a dude in the throat from across a field but he can’t hit a bullseye on a dart board five feet from him? That’s just dumb.

Jet Li as Ying Yang: Besides being a pretty racist character name, Li is pretty horrible in this movie. His action scenes are pretty good, typical Jet Li fare. But Li does something in this movie that I feel he does pretty often. It seems to me that he intentionally acts poorly because he doesn’t like what’s written for him. Compare his performances in a few movies. His acting in Fearless is perfect. His acting in Unleashed is great, he even improves his facial expressions in that role. Then, when named Ying Yang and told to rant about how he’s short, Li puts on one of the most lackluster and almost sarcastically bad performances I’ve ever witnessed. But hey, I’d probably be the same way if my heritage was mocked by Stallone’s grade school wit.

Dolph Lundgren as Gunner Jensen: Besides having a name more suited for a Duke Nuke’em villain, Lundgren puts on an okay performance. My problem is not with his acting or even his character per se, but on what happens to his character. Lundgren betrays the group for a meager amount of money and then attempts to kill Stallone and Li, which actually probably would’ve been a sweet release for Li. He then gets shot in the heart by Stallone and, while dying in a pool of his blood, he redeems himself by telling Stallone who sent him. This is all fine and good. But then at the end of the movie, right before Statham’s little poetry slam, we see the Russian bastard having a drink and laughing with the crew, even being told by Li that he is forgiven. Well, that just really cheapens what it means to be shot in the heart. I know that Stallone wanted a happy ending but come on. I don’t even know what to say.

Randy Couture as Toll Road: Another actor another god awful name. Couture, one of the baddest men on the planet, is the absolute worst character in the movie. And that’s saying a lot. His character is supposed to be the comic relief. Because apparently in Stallone’s rectangular head it is believed that people who seek therapy to better themselves is a hilarious thing. So all Couture talks about is therapy and what his doctor says. Blah blah blah. Couture isn’t even in that many scenes, he’s just another name to stick on the bill, he’s little more than a background character. Yet he’s the one to take down Steve Austin. And this wouldn’t bother me so much if he didn’t do it in the most retarded hat of all time: the bucket hat. The bucket hat is only worn by losers and psychopaths and is hated by all normal people. Oh, you need some examples? Okay. Since becoming really weird (see The Whole 10 Yards), Bruce Willis began wearing bucket hats. John Cena: bucket hat. Bill Murray in What about Bob? Bucket hat. Enough said.

Steve Austin as Paine: From now on, just imagine that I’m insulting the character name. I’m sure that I don’t need to point it out anymore. My main problem with Austin is that he isn’t able to shine in this movie. Granted, nobody really shines in this movie since all of the action is short, but Austin beats up two people the whole movie. One is a defenseless woman who doesn’t fight back. And the other is Stallone. His fight with the plastic old man isn’t bad but Steve didn’t really get a chance to show what he can do. This movie could have solidified him as a real action star but he wasn’t given the opportunity. Otherwise, Austin played his part perfectly.

Terry Crews as Hale Caesar: I was excited to see what Crews could do in an action movie as I have always been a fan of his and thought that he had the look to really kick ass in an action flick. But he didn’t really do anything impressive, he just shot stuff and blew things up. No hand to hand combat. Just reciting his love for explosive bullets that he probably shouldn’t be handling and putting near his face and then shooting a bunch of men from behind. I was let down by the lack of depth in his character and the fact that he didn’t dance at all in the movie. Hopefully my man Cheeseburger Eddy will get a better role in the sequel.

Mickey Rourke as Tool: Besides being completely summed up as a person by his character name, Rourke didn’t do shit the whole movie. He touched up Stallone’s hideous tattoos and then painted pretty flowers on a guitar. What does he do for the team you may ask? The answer: who the hell knows? Rourke is a terrible actor and put on yet another terrible performance, as is apparently his charm.

Bruce Willis didn’t do enough to justify talking about and the Governator’s few lines were delivered better than almost everyone else’s. So what does that tell you? It tells you that the movie was just that bad. This is one bitter man who is only going to watch the sequel to see how the hell Stallone is going to bring back Steve Austin. Maybe he’ll just show up at a bar, burned horribly yet laughing and drinking while garnering the love and forgiveness of the expendables. It wouldn’t surprise me one bit.

Success Formula Revealed

            I am not a man of means. I work a pretty terrible job for pretty terrible pay. So there’s always a little part of my mind that is cooking up some get rich quick scheme. Yet I’m pretty sure that the most recent idea is right on the money. I mean this is some foolproof stuff here. And it was all inspired by the horrid Chris Rock remake of Death at a Funeral and a conversation with my girlfriend Brandie. This is more than an idea, it is an epiphany. It was all so obvious that I’m still kicking myself for not thinking of it earlier. And because I’m just that kinda guy, I will let you all in on the beautiful, money idea: pick something that is already great and just add black people.

            There you have it. Oh, not convinced yet? Alright, let me run you through this. The Honeymooners is often considered to be one of the greatest shows of all time and Jackie Gleason is hailed as ‘the king of comedy.’ So how does our modern society cash in on this timeless gem? They remake it, sans white people. Just add Cedric the Entertainer and Regina Hall and you have an instant box office flare up. I mean come on, how could it not work. It’s full of the same jokes, some of the exact same dialogue, but this time it’s with people of color. Amazing! Now more recently we have Death at a Funeral. Granted, this isn’t an old movie. In fact, it’s only about three years old. But let’s ignore all that and apply the same formula. We keep the same lines, almost line for line in fact. Hell, we even keep the same midget from the first movie. But this time, we add some color to the mix. We throw in a washed up Martin Lawrence, Regina Hall again (notice a pattern there?) and then BAM! That’s Hollywood history baby!

            So here we have a flawless formula for success: movie – white people + Regina Hall + Same Script = $$$. Of course we have to ignore the double standard here, the rascally x factor. We need ignore that this is okay but it would be racist if we, say, remade a Tyler Perry movie but with all white people. Or we remade Bad Boys 2 but this time the cops are white and they fight the Black Panthers in the opening scene. But regardless, we are now ready to cash in on Hollywood’s affinity for laziness and gimmickry. Me and Brandie decided to take it up a notch, however. We are not going for a one time flare up like these previous attempts. We are going ot cash in on one of the largest franchises in movie history. A franchise that will seemingly never die. No, not Indiana Jones, for that has already been destroyed beyond belief. No not Die Hard or Scream or even the Saw and Spiderman series. We are going right for the kill. Air Bud. Isn’t it beautiful? The possibilities are endless. It’s the same old Air Bud, but this time the dog is a black lab. Genius. Pure genius. We just need to bring in Regina Hall as the owner of Bud and then we have instant success. And once the dog finishes up playing every sport man has to offer, he then has kids and then the remakes of Snow Buddies and Space Buddies takes over. Now you always must be prepared for a little bit of backlash from people. The people who love the original may hate our remakes. It may even be misconstrued as slightly racist that the black dog is able to play basketball well. But despite these minor setbacks, Brandie and I will be rich and there’s nothing that you can do about it. Air Bud ftw.

Reality TV: Forget Responsibility

So I recently had a discussion with my old roommate about the trends of reality TV and how it has gotten progressively worse year after year. And I don’t just mean the premises are bad, the plot is unoriginal, or that we just see a copy of a copy of a copy of a show that we stole from another country. No, I mean that reality TV has now decided to convey a whole new layer of bs to its home audience. And not only is it annoying, but it is a dragon punch to the balls of logic and good old fashioned responsibility. And yes, I’m talking about the glorification of the obese.

            Now look, I understand that many factors go into being obese. I used to be big myself. But I took responsibility for my own actions and lost the weight (guess what?) without the incentive of a crap ton of money. Look at where we are now as a society. Between 1980 and 2000, obesity rate in adults doubled. So what do we do about this problem? Do we regulate our fast food industry more? Do we try to use our many facets of media to educate people of the dangers of obesity? Or do we put these irresponsible, overweight people on television and promise them a lot of money if they do what they should do on their own anyway? I’ll bet that you can guess which one we do.

           

            This is very upsetting to me. We used to use reality TV to award people for extraordinary things. You survive on a desolate island for a month, here’s a million dollars. You face three hard, sometimes disgusting challenges, here’s $100,000. You put up with Chef Ramsey’s belittling for so long, here’s a restaurant and a chance to be successful. I am okay with all of this. But somewhere along the way we decided that people should no longer do extraordinary things for money. Now we should reward people for doing what they should be doing on their own: losing weight.

            Losing weight gives you more self-worth, a healthier, longer life and the ability to just do more. Why do you need money on top of all these incentives? Why are we giving it to them? While we are at it, why not pay people to start taking care of their kids? We can film people being good parents and then pay them for it. Or we can make a new hit show where we pay people to obey laws. That would be great wouldn’t it? I’d watch it.

            Although this current trend bothers me, what bothers me the most are the kids. You have shows like Too Fat for 15. Ignoring the fact that almost none of these kids are 15, we get to the heart of the issue: The parents are to blame! Yes, the kids chose to eat nasty, disgusting combinations of food and ignored the fact that they were getting huge. But the parents allow them to eat. The parents are the ones feeding them. The parents are the ones who should have sought out help a long time before. And oftentimes, the parents are huge as well. This is troubling that we now have so many shows about kids who are dangerously obese. That’s why I am proposing a new show. A show called “Take Some Damn Responsibility.” In this show, you follow the parents and their overweight kids. We do not help them to be better parents; they should just do that on their own. We just set the goals for them. We tell them, “Hey, your kid needs to lose about 75 pounds by the end of this summer. That’s five to ten pounds a week.” And now it is up to the parents, not anyone else, to get their kid to diet and exercise and stop feeling like crap all of the time. And now I know, this sounds a bit boring. ‘Where is the incentive?’ you ask. Here’s the incentive: if your kid isn’t healthier and a lot less close to death by the end of the set time, you lose your kids. Simple as that. Let’s face it, the parents have gotten their kids to the point where they can die very early. So if they can’t get them away from the edge, they aren’t fit parents. How’s that for an incentive? The reward is that your kid will live, you shouldn’t need any monetary incentive on top of that unless you’re pure evil.

            So there you have it, that’s my plan to fight our frighteningly uphill battle against childhood obesity. This will not only help these kids, but many others as well. This will refocus our blurred vision of who needs help. We can then hopefully revert back to the kind of shows that helped kids who really needed it. The kids who are stuck in gangs and abusive homes. The kids who are failing at school and suffer from emotional or psychological disorders. Maybe we can again focus on helping kids who have problems outside of the fact that they are just lazy, irresponsible and like to eat way too much.