Movie Review - Gallowwalkers (2007)

Simon Phoenix in Demolition Man. Nino Brown in New Jack City. "Flip" Purify in Jungle Fever. Shadow Henderson in Mo' Better Blues. John Cutter in Passenger 57. The dude that slapped Michael Jackson in the music video "Bad". The unnamed brother towards the end of Waiting to Exhale.  Blade.

These are the roles of the Wesley Snipes I know and love. Granted he's been through the ringer over his taxes and spent 3 years behind bars over them, he still turns in great performances. It was this last role that has given me pause: that of Aman, the main character from the direct-to-DVD movie Gallowwalkers. It's a horror-Western, so bear with me.
The reasonable facsimile of the American West setting is played by the Namib Desert, found in the southwestern African country of Namibia.  It is a very beautiful place, and is part of a country that has no extradition treaty with the United States (which is good so Mr. Snipes can make a movie without federal agents arresting him on site). That said, our story focuses not on taxes, but on a blood debt to be collected by butcher-turned-bounty hunter Aman (Snipes). He hunts the Gallowwalkers: a group of people he once killed in a rage of revenge for the rape of Sueno (Alyssa Pridham), the woman he loved. They have since come back and now wreak havoc on the world, which means one thing, true believers: Aman has to kill them. Again.

WESLEY SNIPES WINS
FATALITY

Aman is somewhat typical for a main character in a horror-Western: he is mysterious, wears a lot of dark colors in the hot ass sun, seems nigh invulnerable, and can do things normal men cannot. For instance, he shows proficiency in surgical procedures not seen since the first Mortal Kombat video game as he rips a Gallowwalker's skull from his body with the spine still attached with his bare hands.

Knowing the they're being hunted by a guy who can do that doesn't stop the other Gallowwalkers from running about and causing trouble. Enter the rest of the gang: Skullbucket (ex-wrestler Diamond Dallas Page), Kisscut (the wide-jawed Simona Brhlikova), and the others led by Kansa (Kevin Howarth).  They have distorted the ideas of law and justice to their own ends, and have marshal Gaza (Patrick Bergin) and his deputies under their thumb to provide access to fresh bodies. It's where we meet the kid Fabulos (Riley Smith) and the whore Angel (the very lovely Tanit Phoenix) about to be sacrificed when they are freed by Aman.  Only Fabulos escapes to partner with Aman in his quest for revenge, while Angel remains captured and will be a sacrifice to resurrect Kansa's dead son (also murdered by Aman).  Not content to suffer Kansa and his crew, Aman and Fabulos fight them to the last and save Angel.  There isn't much after that, as the director Andrew Goth goes for a Kurosawa-style western ending.

"Well, I suppose I have a little while before the
shoot is over and I have to go back to America
and face trial..."

This movie was not going anywhere aside to direct-to-DVD.  It had been in the can since 2007, but due to the tax thing it sat for 5 years or so.  Though the quality of Mr. Snipes' acting is not in question, but the level of technical expertise is inconsistent.  One minute, it's extremely stylized and the next it's on par with Bloodrayne II (hint: not a good movie). It's even interpreted that these Gallowwalkers are akin to skin-walkers, in a very literal sense: they are able to change their shape by killing and then wearing the skin of their victims.  That explains the constant bleeding even when they are not wounded. Visually it's amazing and strangely clear, but in terms of a story telling aspect it's one of a litany of problems in this non-linear tale of revenge and undead outlaws.

I truly wish this were a better movie and that it hadn't been delayed for 5 years, because then I wouldn't have to wait for Expendables 3 to come out to see Wesley Snipes in a mainstream movie.

Comic Book Review: Gammarauders, volume 1 (1989)

Just look at that cover. Everything is
happening at once MAKE IT STOP
and who is that woman in the
smiley-face mask?

This weekend I found the worst comic book I have ever seen, even worse than any art by Rob Liefeld--and that's saying a lot.  It's inconsistent, poorly proportioned, confusing, and altogether bad.  The worst part about it: the artist was trying to mimic the manga style, even going so far as to use screentones for things the artists didn't want to draw.  Unfortunately, I bought them out of the dollar bin.  The comic in question is based on an old TSR tabletop game called GAMMARAUDERS--

STOP. 

Just look at that name. GAMMA...RAUDERS. By all that's holy, this is gonna sting.

For the sake of brevity, it's a comic about dudes piloting giant cyborg mutant animals (called "Bionoids") in the post-apocalyptic future against faceless enemy combatants called "Slugoids".  That's a mouthful, and it doesn't explain why the script is so "all-over-the-place".  We have a few settings like Dodge City, Boom Town, the Big Nada (Is it a demilitarized zone? A nuclear wasteland? An uninhabited stretch of land? I've seen the comic panels and I still don't know) and the Slugoid base, and several factions roaming about these areas like Da Boyz, the Rayzors, and the Friends Of What's Left Of The Earth (F.O.W.L.O.T.E.).  Odd thing: some of these organizations are gangs of post-apocalyptic survivors, not unlike biker gangs.  These people dress in period clothing to mark their gangs: Rayzors dress like Marlon Brando in "The Wild Ones", and Da Boyz dress like 30's gangsters--in zoot suits, no less.  Our heroes, the Gammarauders, somehow are the ones that come out looking like fashion victims.

FINAL ISSUE? *yesssss*

To count the Gammarauders, we have our everyman Jok Tadsworth and his mutant cyborg mecha kangaroo named Hoag (the mecha has an Australian accent, but the pilot does not).  He is teamed up with such characters as the green-clad feminist Natasha (who pilots a poorly-drawn cyborg triceratops...moving on), the Aryan-esque all-American Ridley McMann (piloting a cyborg King Kong--that joke writes itself), Jimbo the Black guy (and his cyborg emperor penguin) and Chuck, the other Black guy who's a samurai (and pilots a giant cyborg flying monkey that speaks Japanese. Believe it or not that part actually makes sense.)  There's a plot, but Lord knows it doesn't really make for good reading--it involves a bowler hat, a snow globe, and an obvious pull from "Citizen Kane". 

So far, I've read issues 1-4, 6, 7 and 9 out of a ten-issue series.  There were some highs and lows as I read, where the lows were most of the books and the only high note was knowing that our hero Jok becomes a wanted man plotting revenge on the Gammarauders for the death of Natasha (end spoilers).  It's as if he knew what I wanted to do and acted on it. I suppose if you had a giant cyborg mutant kangaroo at your disposal, you would also take revenge on GAMMARAUDERS, one of the worst comics I've read in a long time.

GAMMARAUDERS volume 1 gets a 1 out of 10, for making sense at least once.

Movie Review - Oblivion (2013)

I recently saw the latest Tom Cruise action movie vehicle Oblivion in theaters.  It had to have been made in direct competition with Will Smith's After Earth for no other reason than to piss in his face, because Will Smith's movie came to my eye well before Oblivion ever did.  It was a well-done rush marketing job, that made me wonder how the ad firm saddled with selling this film got it moving so fast.  Marketing questions aside, I have noticed something about Tom Cruise: not the fact that he's had his wives picked out for him by his religion (because arranged marriages are as old as human civilization), or how Hollywood goes to the absurd lengths to tell us he's a great actor (despite only having four or five acting settings, of which "determined" is his best and makes him the most money).  Tom Cruise has recently played characters with the same name: JACK.

Mr. Cruise started playing Jack in Ridley Scott's Legend back in 1986, and it was the movie that inspired the Legend of Zelda (according to Shigeru Miyamoto). He played the titular character in Jack Reacher, and (although a stretch) played Stacee Jaxx in the film musical Rock of Ages.  Many of his characters are so close in temperament and behavior that they might as well be called JACK also.  I expect there to be a day when Mr. Cruise reveals to us all that his real name is not Tom but JACK.  With that out of the way, we can talk about our latest Jack, living above the ruins of old Earth--completely transformed and nearly empty of humans.

Mile High Club Headquarters? Possibly.

The humans of the future have fled to Saturn's moon Titan to escape the destruction wrought upon Earth by an invading alien race 60 years earlier--the Scavs.  Many Scavs still roam the surface of Earth, and attempt to strike out at large reactors built to convert sea water into fusion energy.  Most of thee facilities are guarded by drones, the spherical four-eyed white robots that fly about the skies.  These devices are programmed to shoot Scavs.  Sometimes they go bad and crash, and that's where Technician 49 (Cruise) comes in.  His name is Jack Harper, and he's been having strange dreams--of old Earth, of New York City, and a woman whom he feels a strong connection to...but has never met.  It brings him to start remembering things, which his "partner" Victoria Olsen (Andrea Riseborough) strongly discourages due to company regulations and a mandatory memory wipe for security purposes.  A red flag should pop up here, but for the grace of suspension of disbelief we soldier on with the story.

Julia (l) and Jack (r) realize they got to the observation deck
of the Empire State Building by stepping down off the ground. 
That is on the 86th floor, so that should give you a clue to
how screwed up the Earth is.

Not soon after a craft crashes into Zone 49, which is Jack's territory.  He feels the need to go in despite warnings from Victoria.  He proceeds in to find life pods scattered about the crash site.  All of them contain humans from an astronaut mission, and one of them contains the woman who has been haunting Jack's dreams of late: cosmonaut Julia Rusakova (Olga Kurylenko).  Eventually, Julia asks to have the black box recorder returned from her ship's landing site and Jack obliges.  Unfortunately, the Scavs are watching the landing site and capture both Jack and Julia.  A revelation hits them both once they meet the true faces of their captors: humanity is apparently fighting itself, and soldiers of "La Resistance" (aka the "Scavs") are led by Morgan Freeman.  And that's not the wildest part.

"Dammit, now where did I put that app?"

Oblivion is an amazing movie to watch.  It's got amazing design work from its sterile white house, to the geometric stylings of machinery (Jack's ship and collapsible dirt bike are a marvel, and don't get me started on those beautiful drones).  Much of the soundtrack is performed by my new favorite band M83, recalling the funk that is their smash hit "Midnight City".  Both of these combined remind me of the visual masterpiece that is TRON:Legacy, which is funny because Joseph Kosinski directed that film as well as Oblivion.  But there is a huge problem in the film (not counting the fact that Andrea Riseborough's irises never contract, which makes her look like a robot) with the twist at the end of Act II and the movie's denoument.

<<---NOTE: RAMBLING AND SPOILERS AHOY--->>

Movie Review - Near Dark (1987)

One of my avorite movies is the James Cameron movie ALIENS, sequel to Ridley Scott's Alien.  It was not only a wild sci-fi romp, but the characters were somewhat likable to the extreme, namely most of the characters who didn't die in the initial Xenomorph attack--I'm talking Hudson, Vazquez and Bishop.  It is a testament to the actors' craft that Bill Paxton, Jenette Goldstein, and the great Lance Henriksen are still widely remembered for their performance even in light of that totally sweet battle at the end of the movie.  However, I did not know if they all had been in another movie together since that film.  Behold, I have watched Near Dark, and sure enough...there they all are.  This time, Paxton wore the makeup and it ended up being plastered all over the cover because it was that good...but was not nominated for an award in the Special Effects category--anywhere.  It's a shame, but it was a stepping stone for smaller things into bigger things.

Our story opens up with a shot of a mosquito feeding on a handsome hillbilly named Caleb Colton (Adrian Pasar, the future President Nathan Petrelli from HEROES) as he wakes up to a sunset.  He heads into town and meets his friends, only to be distracted by a very beautiful young country ingenue.  He finds out her name is May (Jenny Wright) and she's in town with "friends".  He tries to woo her and convinces her to come with him out of town in his truck.  They go to his dad's farm and he attempts to show her a horse--which promptly runs from the petite young woman.  Figuring nothing's up with her, Caleb tries to put the moves on May but she stops him and wants to know what time it is.  Caleb reminds her it's near to dawn and she demands to be taken home.  He wants to know why and May suddenly persists to be taken home, as if something bad will happen.  He agrees, but before he takes her any further he begs just one last kiss.  May gives him one heckuva steaming kiss...and slips in a small nip to his neck, just before she flees into the morning twilight.

Vampires from LV-426 (l-r): Jesse Hooker (Henriksen),
Diamondback (Goldstein), and Severen (Paxton)
(not pictured: Homer [Joshua John Miller]).

Caleb shrugs off that rather odd foreplay and tries to start the truck, but the engine fails to turn over and start.  He decides to walk across the town fields as the sun rises, but finds his energy sapped every minute he's out there and can't figure out why his skin is burning and smoking.  Suddenly, he is kidnapped into a runaway RV and confronted by a pack of five filthy, murderous drifters--one of which turns out to be May (who is not so filthy or murderous).  On top of being a kidnapping victim, Caleb gets the worst news he could possibly get (thus far): he has been bitten and transformed into a vampire.

From this point forward, things get interesting.  With the previous statement, I present to you my Understatement of the Year for 2013.

Above: May (Wright) and Caleb (Pasar) share a tender
embrace.  This might be a case of beating a dead horse, but...
STILL A BETTER LOVE STORY THAN TWILIGHT

This movie was one that a few friends had recommended to me, namely those from US states with rural backgrounds.  It was entertaining, and a fun experience pointing out all the actors who have marched across the silver screen (namely Tim "Dollman" Thomerson and a young Theresa Randle).  I also found it interesting to note that this is the first mainstream film for director Kathryn Bigelow, who would go on to direct hits like the movie that got her name in lights, the 2008 military drama The Hurt Locker (starring Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters' male lead, Jeremy Renner) and the 2012 critical darling Zero Dark Thirty.  If this is the kind of movie she would direct in the future, she should have been a big name in Hollywood well before The Hurt Locker.  I suppose the accusations of a Hollywood Boys' Club preventing her from making movies are true: HER MOVIES ARE A LOT BETTER THAN WHAT MOST MALE DIRECTORS MAKE. 

To think, if Ms. Bigelow kept making movies like this, we might not deride the movie industry as mush as we do and we might've actually paid for the films we watch.  Sadly, we are too far gone and more people know of a world where you always have an option on how you watch your movies.  They will never know the feeling of sitting in a filthy non-IMAX/non-HD sound movie theater with a bunch of strangers (some of whom are smoking) over and over again to watch the same movie (because viewers in theater seats can't rewind or pause).  To know such a world of inconvenience no longer exists and has cost the movie industry brings a tear to my eye...but not as much as the ending for Near Dark.  It was sooooooooo bad, it's gonna cost the ratings score.

RATING: 7/10

Movie Review - Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013)

I saw a photo in an issue of EMPIRE Magazine several years ago, and it made me wonder: is Gemma Arterton the next Kate Beckinsale?  I sincerely hoped so.  She has a nice face and that deadpan British accent that makes almost anything she says sexy as hell. The photo also helped, as she was clad in tight butt-hugging leathers and holding a crossbow, standing next to some guy (later I found out he was Jeremy Renner, star of The Avengers, The Town and The Bourne Legacy).  The photo was for a movie and it looked like an adventure in the same vein as Van Helsing--the type of movie set in Industrial period clothing but containing anachronisms, like sniper rifles with night-vision scopes or incendiary grenades.  It looked like it might be steampunk, so I checked the name:  HANSEL AND GRETEL: WITCH HUNTERS.

That already sounded nuts, so I was waiting for a while to see this one.  It was a similar situation when I was waiting for the American release of Solomon Kane: fucking unbearable.  Eventually I got to watch this movie, and I did it in IMAX 3D! So how was it, you ask?  It seems that too much anachronism can spoil what would otherwise be a good fantasy yarn.

"I noticed the script says you're a diabetic, Jeremy.
Are you alright with that?" "No...but says here you
headbutt a grown man with no blood on your forehead
or bruising. You're as pale as a sheet Gemma; how is that--"
"SOUNDS LEGIT; let's do it!"

To start us off, this movie is a VERY loose adaptation of the Brothers Grimm fairy tale about two kids who find a candy house, are captured by the cannibal witch who lives inside, and kill her in their attempt to escape.  Now these two kids have grown up to be Hansel (Jeremy Renner) and forward-thinking Gretel (Gemma Arterton), bounty-hunting the very supernatural creatures that mentally scarred them: witches.  They have come across several gadgets in their quest to rid the world of witches, like Mossberg pump-action shotguns, Tasers, split-level axial transforming perpendicular crossbows (you have to see it to believe it), folding rifles, carousel-loaded hand cannons, and what may be a Gatling or Maxim gun.  The most interesting part of the movie comes with Hansel and his "sugar sickness." It seems when the witch was trying to fatten Hansel up to eat him, she made him eat nothing but candy which made him sick.  Now in his adult life Hansel must take an injection of serum every few hours or he dies.  This makes Jeremy Renner's Hansel a diabetic hero (the first being Captain Novolin).  It's a good thing to have a weakness for a hero that seems somewhat invincible in the film.  Our heroine Gretel is not limited to such problems, and can fight without any real injury or hindrance.

Tenacious D says "THAT'S CALLED TEAM-WORK!"

Hansel and Gretel (whose makeup never smears, not even the blood) earn the enmity of a witch named...Muriel (played by Famke Janssen of X-Men fame) who wants to save her kind from these traveling murderers by sacrificing 12 souls during the Blood Moon--one for each month--and also needs the heart of a great White Witch to complete the ritual that grants any witch that drinks the brew created from the blood of the sacrifices to become immune to fire permanently.  A witch's enemies can tie her to the stake but she will not burn...totally worth the convoluted plan that can only happen once a year, I say.  Throw in some forgettable characters/love interests and discarded plot threads and you have an action movie for the summer...strangely placed in January.

Cool guys (and girls) don't look at explosions as they
walk away from them. Especially if they caused them.

I don't know what the goal of Dead Snow director Tommy Wirkola was when he set out to make this movie, but it would seem he needed to hire a different editor.  If he requested this cut, then he needs to fix it.  The editing was all over the place, and clipped several establishing shots to shorten the running time.  There were some problems, notably in the final battle sequence when Hansel drops his shotgun, Gretel comes in with a weapon and she is struck and drops it.  The next shot is of Hansel's shotgun hitting the ground.  The way that's ordered it looks like Gretel had Hansel's shotgun.  This confused me, but not nearly as much as allowing an untrained person to handle a rapid fire machine gun in a crowd setting.  It's a damned good way to get shot and give the witches what they want, but apparently not in this world.  In any case, I expect a Director's Cut of this film, with all the stuff that should have gone in to fill in any problem issues.  Other than that, a film that had great props and artwork but still needs a shine and polish to be complete.

RATING: 6/10

Movie Review - Chernobyl Diaries (2012)

The 1980s were a busy decade for major disaster events across the globe, and 1986 was no exception.  The two big stories were the Challenger Explosion above Cape Canaveral, FL, USA (an event I witnessed on television in school) and the Chernobyl nuclear disaster near Pripyat, Ukraine, USSR.  The Challenger explosion was more important to me at the time because I wanted to be an astronaut and it happened in America; what I learned about Russia came from movies like Rocky IV, Red Scorpion, and Red Heat.  While still important, I have seen what took place in Chernobyl and Pripyat and my heart goes out to the victims and their descendants.  More often, I hear of entertainment inspired by the disaster, and its aftermath--things like extreme tourism and urban exploration of abandoned Pripyat, the FPS video game S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl and the horror movie Chernobyl Diaries.  These things never seem to display an understanding that a disaster happened there over 25 years ago and that one should be respectful of the victims.  Sadly, this very fact did not sell movie tickets or game units as much as "wander into a guarded radioactive exclusion zone and get scared/killed by radioactive mutant inhabitants".  If it didn't then I wouldn't have a movie to write about.

PRIPYAT EXPLORATION PARTY (from left to right):
Zoe the Norwegian, Michael the Australian,
Paul, Yuri the suspicious Russian tour guide,
Amanda, Natalie and Chris.

Chernobyl Diaries could have gone a completely different way, but for a vote and peer pressure.  Hence several stupid Americans--Chris (Jesse McCartney) and his very blonde girlfriend Natalie (Olivia Taylor Dudley), Chris' brother Paul (Jonathan Sadowski) and Natalie's friend Amanda (Devin Kelley)--a Norwegian (Ingrid Bolsø Berdal) and her Australian fiancee (Nathan Phillips) meet up in Kiev to go on an extreme tourism run to Pripyat to tour the abandoned radioactive city with their highly suspicious Russian tour guide (Dimitri Diatchenko).  The usual happens when they reach spoooOOOOky Pripyat: the vehicle is crippled somehow, cellphones don't work, nobody answers the Walkie-Talkie, and everyone jumps at shadows.  There was a point where I waited a full minute waiting for a jump scare after I called it.  Throw in mysterious humanoid things that attack from the dark that seem to have a taste for raw flesh and you have a recipe for disaster.  Especially when you realize that had Chris just stuck to his guns, he'd be still be alive to tell everyone abut his not-so-awesome European trip.

Chris was present when the vote was cast and he didn't have to go. But everyone else was going, and he had just been outvoted...by Natalie, the woman he wanted to marry.  This should have been the linchpin to let him know he shouldn't marry this girl if she wasn't going to use her head on a trip to a foreign country where blonde White women  go missing and nobody cares but the men who buy them.  Instead, he's like "Oh OK honey, we can go into the poisonous radioactive zone; I can propose marriage to you later" and never gets the chance.

"Like zoiks, Scoob, I wonder when the rest of the
gang'll be back"  "REAH! Re-hee-hee-hee..."

There were several things that made me wonder about this movie, especially the throwaway line about Chris accepting a one-way plane ticket to Kiev from his brother.  WHO THE FUCK DOES THAT? WHO ACCEPTS A ONE-WAY PLANE TICKET ANYWHERE FROM ANYONE, WITH NO WAY TO GET BACK ALREADY SET UP? 

When Amanda takes pics and sees images of faces spying from shadowy windows and doesn't tell anyone, despite constant speculation and queries about whether people still live in the abandoned city? That's like setting up your entire crew to get killed.  Also, those guards don't stand there for nothing all day: they were obviously are there to hold a line to keep people out or things in.  These tourists were more concerned about the money they spent to go on a trip to a dangerous and forbidden area than staying under the notice of the law.  Blonde-ass Natalie even made the comment, "We might end up in a Ukranian jail or something".  Bitch, you're lucky your dumb ass didn't get kidnapped by the drunk guys at the beginning of the movie and sold into sex slavery.  That would have been a lot more interesting to watch if her friends broke through hell to rescue her  instead of finding her barely molested corpse behind some machinery in Chernobyl.

OK so they know they're not supposed to be in Pripyat,
they know that Chernobyl is hella contaminated, and yet
they all go chasing an ill-prepared tour guide who
brought them to this living graveyard in the first place
through its hallways. Morons.

Which now brings me to a BIG issue I had with this movie: instead of facing down wild dogs (whom they could have intimidated with their tool-using opposing thumbs), they chose to go further into the radioactive zone, even into the site of the disaster itself--the ruined Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant.  Here, nature reclaimed only so much, and a miscarriage of technology changed those left behind.  When the surviving members head deeper into the site, they had a Geiger counter with them, ticking off all the way and getting more intense as they approached certain areas.  At times their skin would blister, they would feel sick, and one guy even went blind.  It was made clear to them at the start that they would have to leave after a period of time to avoid radiation poisoning just being in Pripyat...and yet they went deeper in to...I don't know, get more poisoning. There was no one to save, no reason to go deeper.  It's like watching a murder victim in a slasher flick run upstairs to escape the killer.

IT'S A TRAP!

While the movie was bad, the ending was both good and fitting: no one survived, everyone got what they deserved, and no one bred their genes to make more stupid people. There are two down sides to this movie.  For starters, this may be the only information people may learn about Chernobyl or the issues with nuclear energy.  Second, this film was more money in the hands of Oren Peli, the man responsible for the Paranormal Activity series--now on its fifth movie. 
PLEASE STOP HIM BEFORE HE KILLS BRAIN CELLS AGAIN--DO NOT SEE THIS MOVIE, NOT EVEN ON BOOTLEG.

RATING: 2/10

Movie Review - Lily C.A.T. (1987)

I stopped by my local used book store in Miami, called Paperback Book X-Change.  It was a subdued affair, picking up books to read on my trip to work, and I decided to get some VHS tapes to transfer to DVD.  I picked up two VHS tapes: Sword and the Dragon, and an anime I had always seen advertisements for but never actually watched, Lily C.A.T.

For some reason, it didn't look as interesting as Clash of the Bionoids (AKA Macross: Do You Remember Love?), Ninja Scroll, or AKIRA.  So I skipped it, until a few days ago.  I gave it a chance and I understand why I might have avoided it for so long.

Lily C.A.T. is the story of a bunch of astronauts aboard the deep space vessel Saldes on the way to planet LA-003 on orders from the Syncam Company.  Luckily, the daughter of the president, the very blonde Nancy, is on the trip with her cat Lily.  A motley crew of redshirts are also on hand to do their jobs for the company, but they are in cryo-sleep for most of the trip.  Over the 20 years in cryo-sleep, an incident takes place and allows an extraterrestrial pathogen into the ship's air supply.  When the crew wakes up...uh, this is usually where I say "hijinks ensue", but I can't bring myself to do so in a positive way...because this anime sucks in a bad way.

Lily C.A.T.: the story of a girl and her pussy...OR IS IT?

This anime has all the elements of an homage to Ridley Scott's ALIEN and the ALIEN franchise, as well as to John Carpenter's The Thing.  The problem is that it's NOT an homage of those films, just a ripoff.  From the duct taped weapons to the almost rotoscoped hallways of the Saldes, Lily C.A.T. is not worthy of being called a homage.  It does, however, create a suspenseful atmosphere and present some of the most screwed up images anime had yet to present to an audience.  Yoshitaka Amano (of Final Fantasy fame) was responsible for character designs (evident in the female costumes and character hairstyles) and monster design.  If only the entire anime was based on his style of art, then this would be a better anime not only for the art in general, but for the sheer fucked-upness of the monster design.

WAT

The alien monster in Lily C.A.T. is a consummate hunter, waltzing up on its prey and absorbing it into its form.  It does not have much to do except have its kills be cut away from.  If it was actually allowed to kill the humans onboard the Saldes, then it would be wholly like the ALIEN franchise.  There's another element to this anime that put me on edge: if the alien's not killing everyone, who else is killing the crew?  While the anime makes a big hullabaloo about stowaways called "time-jumpers" -- criminals who fake credentials to stow away on long-haul space trips to escape the statute of limitations on their crimes -- and who they are, the real mystery is in who is trying to kill the crew.  Other than the alien, of course.  If you wish to find out, I'm sorry to suggest that you'll have to watch Lily C.A.T. for yourself.

RATING: 5/10

A CONUNDRUM: HOW TO RELAX

This is my first post in 2013, and it's a doozy.  I couldn't sleep tonight because I find myself in a interesting conundrum: the idea of relaxation, how to relax, and stress.

How does one relax? I've found it odd that I have never been able to relax around others. My problem stems from the perception of relaxation.

When I was a child, I had a lot of pressure on me to succeed and I wanted to relax.  I could only do it when I was alone.  If I was seen doing what I thought was relaxing (i.e., sleeping, reading, playing video games, etc.), I was called "lazy" and that I should go relax outside. Going outside meant that I had to go do stuff--stuff that I already hate to do over the course of a busy week.
When I was with others and I was supposed to relax, I had to do all this stuff I was supposed to already know from...somewhere...and that was supposed to be relaxing.  If I could not do that, there would be a problem: questions why, peer pressure to conform, etc.  Oddly enough the solution to the first problem (answers to questions why) can elicit a negative response.  Now a new problem comes up: how to relax outside of other people  ('cuz you're not gonna stick around people you can't talk to).  The easy answer is to be alone, but how should one relax when alone?  Another easy answer; whatever you feel like.  This leads to the interesting conundrum at the start of this post and how it relates to the contemporary ideal form of relaxation.

If you find yourself in a group of people and begin to make small talk, the question comes up, "So, what do you do to relax?" or some permutation. To tell people what you do to relax supposedly says a lot about a person--and that's not a fair assessment.
Our world spends a ridiculous amount of money and time on crafting the ideal form of relaxation, from concerts (be they loud, bass-filled Spring Breaks or quiet opera nights) to vacations (preferably to picturesque lands or designed and designated travel destinations), even down to the desired physical effects of the trip (tan lines, souvenirs, photos, etc.).  Yet no one ever asks what people want to do to relax.  There are offers on what to do on the trip, and more often that not they're telling folks what to do and how to do it.  For argument's sake, let's say these instructions are for the safety of the vacationer.  Now comes the hard part: when you want to relax, you have a great deal of societal norms to follow, even in situations where the behavior is frowned upon (i.e., doing drugs).

So back to the idea of what people think about you when you answer the questions on how you relax.  Imagine someone making all kinds of assumptions and extrapolations based on the idea that you went to Paris on vacation this year.  They could assume the following in a positive light, by virtue of your destination:

• you speak French
• you have money to travel across the Atlantic
• you have connections in Europe
• you are important

Oddly enough, some would say the same of drug kingpins, computer hackers, and Moroccan terrorists. These assumptions listed by bullets above are but a few that make many people who take vacations in the BO-RING lower 48 to think they must somehow get to these artificially elevated places. Nothing could be further from the truth. 

I want everyone who reads this to evaluate how you relax and why you relax the way you do. Is it because you want to relax this way or because someone told you this is the way you are to relax or should relax? Have your ideas on relaxation been shaped by outside influences (TV, internet, etc.) or are they internally formulated?  It's a bit deep to think about relaxation, and you wanna say to what you're reading now, "Dude, just chill out and relax" but get this: I have heard the word "relax" so much in my life without support on what people who tell me that want to see or hear or know in reference to that word, that every time I hear it I tense up and I CANNOT RELAX.

It's so weird, but it happens every time. Same thing happens when people ask me to "loosen up" or "be more flexible".  Usually when I am asked this from people I know or have met, I find this precedes a change in attitude: one minute it's "loosen up" and the next it's "get serious".  I know there's a time and place for all these things, but sometimes things just ain't funny. And sometimes they're hilarious.  I'm not some sort of sociopath, but I swear this kind of activity is driving me insane--and you'd go insane too if someone was playing yo-yo with their scale of seriousness every other week.  So I lock up and cannot relax.  In my experiences, there's just too much expectations on what is and isn't relaxing or relaxation.

I need to find a way to relax with people, or I'm going to be locking a lot of doors behind me.  Does anyone have any suggestions that does not involve illicit or illegal drugs?  I'd like to hear from you; please reply in the comment box below.

TL;DR: How can one relax around people without being self-conscious and getting fucked up first?

Movie Review: Dungeons & Dragons: The Book of Vile Darkness (2012)

(Note: This movie is part of the Dungeons & Dragons Movie Series. For more movies, see the entries for the 2000 movie and its 2005 sequel).

I had no idea this was in the works, so I was pleasantly surprised when SyFy decided to premiere the movie on its channel.  It cased a buzz in my gaming circle, and I also wanted to watch it as well.  I eventually got to watch it, and it was worth my time, unlike some D&D movies.  The best part of this surprise was the subject matter of the movie: the Book of Vile Darkness.

To be fair, the movie is not about the singular artifact called the book of vile darkness--a tome suffused with so much evil from its human-skin book cover to the foul contents penned in blood that it makes whomever reads it turn evil--but about the quest to stop it from being recreated by a dark cult bent on having darkness rule the lands once again.  This monumental task is taken up by one paladin of Pelor named Grayson Azrael (Jack Derges).

When his paladin order, the Knights of the New Sun, is nearly wiped out save for himself and his captured father, Grayson must go undercover and join a group of evil adventurers:

• Akordia (Eleanor Gecks), a female shadar-kai witch
• Vimak (Habib Nasib Nader), a male goliath barbarian
• Seith (Lex Daniel), a male human assassin
• Bezz (Barry Aird), a male human vermin lord

THE PARTY ASSEMBLED (from l-r):
Vimak the barbarian, Seith the assassin,
Bezz the vermin lord, Akordia the witch,
and Sir Grayson the paladin. That is not a typo.

Sir Grayson braves the depths of depravity while holding up his morality, sleeping with an evil spellcaster (that means Akordia; he's doesn't go boning dudes to save the world), even slaying a red dragon in the process to get closer to the...I'm not sure if I can really say this..."mind flayer" Shathrax.  This strange creature is responsible for trying to recreate the book AND for capturing Grayson's father.  Grayson will travel very far to reach his goal, from his home kingdom all the way to the Elemental Plane of Air--or was it the Plane of Shadow?  I couldn't be sure, but wherever they were there wasn't a lot of ground to work with.  At the end of it all, this movie was a lot better than its predecessors despite being based on the rules for the 4th edition D&D.  I was riveted to my seat for a great deal of the movie, mainly because of the attention to detail about the technical game stuff.

(actual product, written for D&D 3.0 rules)

They got most of the races and monsters right--the fire archon, red dragon, and especially the slaymate (an undead creature from Libris Mortis).  I almost crawled over the back of my chair when I saw it in action.  The mind flayer was no mind flayer at all, but some guy with his mouth sewn shut.  The magic items used were pretty on the nose, like the javelin of lightning, and the collars of obedience combined with the belt of the emperor that Shathrax wore.  Vorpal blades, necklace of fireballs, bag of holding; you name it, it was in there.  The film even had a fun time with the spells, namely invisibility.  And I was amazed.

It can be said that anything worth doing takes time, practice, and a whole lot of stress.  In the case of Dungeons & Dragons: The Book of Vile Darkness, the 7 years between live-action projects was worth it.  I recommend this movie, not because it's all that good but because someone had the balls to make another one even after the first two films were critically panned in the theaters and the direct-to-video market.  I hope someone is as care-free to produce and direct the next D&D film, because I will watch it.  And I hope you will too.

RATING: 8/10

Movie Review - Ju Dou (1990)

My parents had cable off-and-on in my household.  At one point, the cable became too expensive, and we stopped.  We picked it up again after a while, and stopped again when the cable became too much. Now, with digital cable forcing everyone to pay for stuff they used to get for free, we have cable again.  With the glut of crap on specially generalized cable television (Toddlers & Tiaras, Crocosaurus, all the no-talent shows, occult-themed shows, police procedural shows, etc.), it will never be like it was.  

Back then, we didn't have to worry about having to subscribe to a specific channel to get out foreign movies: we simply were surprised.  It was like this in my high school years when I watched the movie that started my love for Asian cinema: Ju Dou.

Ju Dou was like nothing I had seen before in American film: the new land, the strange people and culture (granted, the only time I had dealt with Asian people and culture was either at a restaurant or a kung-fu movie), the language, and the colors. OH GOD THE COLORS.  The colors weren't part of some forced hallucination or a drug-related trip on my part.  It was simply the way that director Yimou Zhang was able to not only give the set designer and cinematographer the instructions to make the movie visually appealing, but the tension between the characters was believable and tangible.  It would set the rule for me in the future that whenever I watch an Asian film, check if Li Gong is in it first.

"Dear Penthouse Forum..."

The movie is set in early 20th Century China, when the life of Ju Dou (played by Li Gong) is disrupted by her marriage to Old Yang (actor Wei Li) who runs a dye mill.  He paid a handsome sum for such a beautiful bride, so she had better produce him an heir--which she cannot because the old man is sterile.  He treats her horribly in response (an understatement, to say the least) and has no idea that someone has else has had their eye on her, but can't act on it.

Tianqing (Baotian Li) is Old Yang's younger relative, who lives and works at the mill as Yang's ward.  He is also mistreated to a degree.  He takes pity on the woman who is now legally his aunt.  At first, their relationship is deeply appalling... but you come to understand that their common ground is their hatred of Old Yang.  He is wholly deserving of this hatred, which Ju Dou and Tianqing transform into lust and love.  Nature takes its course under the influence of human intervention, and the story seems as if it will develop into an ending scenario that will be considered acceptable.  That's when the film becomes an experience in truly deep heartbreak.  The dynamic changes so hard and fast, you can only stay riveted to your seat to see how it all turns out.

OH GOD THE COLORS, MAN

And so it went, my first foreign film viewing.  

This led to me watching not only foreign films with Li Gong in it (Curse of the Golden Flower, Raise the Red Lantern), but also other foreign fare (Luc Besson's ANGEL-A, Bernardo Bertolucci's The Last Emperor [yes, it counts], Karan Johar's Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, Juzo Itami's Tampopo), not to mention domestic productions with Asian themes (Memoirs of a Geisha, Snow Falling on Cedars).  I can say without any confusion that this is one of the best movies I have ever seen.  This is mostly due to my eyes being opened--not to the flare of an action movie's explosion, the shine of a silver sci-fi rocket or to the horrors of a slasher film--but to the greater expanse of world film and filmmakers outside of America and kung-fu movies.  To you and all those like you, director Zhang, I thank you.

The Tale of Aild Sky - a Product of 24-Hour Comic Book Day!

I've posted my resulting work from 24-Hour Comic Book Day on my Wordpress site, so here goes:
http://sgwatson.wordpress.com/2012/10/26/the-tale-of-aild-sky-a-product-of-24-hour-comic-book-day/

Enjoy!,
-swatson

Movie Review: Tokyo Gore Police (2008)

I don't get to watch a lot of movies in the theaters (mainly because that sh*t is expensive, but you know that already), and when I do, I watch superhero movies with my friend Will and Dacarllo.  When I'm not with them, I use the Internet.  Now, I'm not out there torrenting like the rest of y'all.  I use other forms to get my movies--all of them legal.  Which brings me to my movie review subject: Tokyo Gore Police.

I watched it and I can truly say this movie lives up to its title, as all movies should.  The film (used loosely) is set in a futuristic Tokyo, some time after the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department and the Japanese Self-Defense Forces have been privatized and merged into the former.  Apparently, all Japan is now Tokyo...or not, I am unsure.  Also new to the mix are "Engineers"--a new type of life-form that causes mayhem in the streets and turns ordinary criminals into super-powered villains.
Enter Ruka (played by Eihi Shina of Audition fame), an expert "Engineer Hunter" with the Tokyo Metro Police, who hunts using only a samurai sword.  True to Japanese fantasy tropes, she weighs 90 pounds soaking wet and no family lineage is tied to the weapon to explain its unnatural ability to remain undamaged throughout the film as she fights hulking monsters.  She does her best and is celebrated in the ranks of the police department...but off-duty, she is a sad young woman who laments the loss of her policeman father years ago and makes cuts on her left arm for catharsis.  Only with the arrival of a particular Engineer monster does the story begin to evolve from a simple hack-and-slash videogame parody into something resembling a murder mystery.

- ATOMIC BOMB REFERENCE LOL -

There are a lot of counter-culture elements, sexual elements, dark humor (i.e., cutesy wrist-cutting devices that "make the blood sweeter"), and alternative lifestyle choices on display, which pale in comparison to the main event the movie puts forth.  When a person talks about themselves as an expert and says that "[Insert field of expertise here] is my middle name", they want you to believe that they were born with an intense knowledge of the field.  The same holds true for Tokyo Gore Police.  GORE is its middle name.

There were a lot of moments when I had to stop watching--not because I was gonna throw up, but...  Y'know what?  I'm lying.  Lying, and lying so hard.  I was gonna throw up so many times while watching, because I had just eaten dinner and there was so much gore for the sake of it.  Characters who could have just hit their opponents in the head with a bottle and stopped there, chose to jam the broken bottle into their opponent's face and use it to cookie-cut the flesh and bone from his skull.  What does that do? He dead!

The worst part of the movie for me was when I was watching it, I began to get used to the simulated carnage--the watery blood, the churned-up whatever they were using to simulate destroyed flesh, the ever-increasing attempts at body horror, etc.  Each special effect kept taking me out of the story.  At the end of it all, I was more concerned with the story than the poor tries to keep my attention with special effects.

Normally, I give Japanese films a pass when their story surpasses their special effects (STACY, Mechanical Violator HAKAIDER), but this movie is on its way to becoming the next Death Trance.  What's Death Trance, you ask?  Exactly--you probably don't know.  That's how bad it sucked.  I truly wish more time was spent developing the characterizations of Ruka and the bar owner--ESPECIALLY the bar owner.  Instead, we have a fine revenge story and a great fantasy world that is undercut by its own special effects.  For shame, Japan. For shame.

24 Hour Comic Book Day - I'm Participating!

Hey everyone,

I'm participating in 24-Hour Comic Book Day at Tate's Comics in Oakland Park, FL.  I am #16, so wish me luck!

More information:
http://www.24hourcomicsday.com/

Movie Review: Resident Evil: Retribution (2012)

Any alien armada watching out broadcasts or monitoring our data streams of pirated movies can see that Earth has a sure defense against them.  Not the armies, navies, air or special forces of respective countries would be able to stand against the might of an alien invasion.  Rest assured the aliens know our first, last, and only true line of defense: MILLA JOVOVICH.

Yes, the actress/activist/fashion designer/singer/mother/former Ukranian supermodel Milla Jovovich has been in more movies where she is the last best hope for mankind against normal and supra-normal (including extraterrestrial and supernatural) threats (see The Fifth Element) and capable of handling acrobatic feats with ease (The Three Musketeers [2011]).  These skills are heavily in play in the movie series that placed her name on the minds of movie producers: the Resident Evil franchise.
In the review for the House of the Dead movie, I brought up Ms. Jovovich and her baby-daddy Paul W.S. Anderson--the man responsible for the movie translation about the CAPCOM survival horror videogame.  I bring her up again because this review for Resident Evil: Retribution before you is also a plea to Ms. Jovovich:  

PLEASE END THE RESIDENT EVIL FRANCHISE WITH THE NEXT INSTALLMENT, BECAUSE IT'S WORN OUT ITS WELCOME.

whileIstoptheinvadingarmy--POSE...

The Resident Evil franchise was fun when everybody was making video game movies, bringing our video game fantasies to life with actors we tolerate in the roles we've already cast in our heads (more often than not, with conflict).  With a movie-only character like Alice, we'd be interested to see what kinda hijinks she could get into and out of.  She's been through Raccoon City twice, the desert, Los Angeles, Alaska, and now every major world city.

The secondary heroes in this movie are veterans from the video game series: Barry Burton, Leon Kennedy and Ada Wong.  You find out most of the world which we've seen in previous installments has been a lie on a grand scale, rendering many of the movie's off-the-wall ideas quite sensible.  It's as if the world has turned upside down to accommodate the twists & turns of the Resident Evil franchise...almost as if this entire series was written out before the first or second film hit theaters.  If that's the case, kudos to the writers for such an amazing effort.  Unfortunately, there seems to be a few reused ideas in this movie from previous Milla Jovovich movies in the series that could be done away with in my opinion.

Time for a "naked break" from POSING...

1. Naked Milla Jovovich
I'm a dude; I like the ladies and what they are capable of doing.  It's a great thing to see an empowered woman do her thing.  It was a great thing in The Fifth Element and the first Resident Evil movie to see Ms. Jovovich in a state of vulnerability, represented by different levels of injury, nudity, and confusion/disorientation, because it allowed her to transform her earlier states into a form of RAAAAAAAGE.  She then pushes out of that cocoon as a "bullet with butterfly wings" and takes out what forms of oppression and evil that lay beyond the walls of her prison.  It's as if every scene like that is supposed to be a rape victim getting her shit together and striking out at their attacker.  These can be very powerful scenes to witness, like Uma Thurman's performance in Kill Bill: Vol. I, but when overused it dulls the meaning of the scene as it happens a SECOND time in the latest entry
Due to the number of times this happens in the Milla Jovovich catalog, I'm gonna take a wild guess and say that her days of being wrapped in funky clothes are behind her and she'd like to be able to act without any identifying markers: no clothes, no items, no fancy makeup, just her and her acting ability.  Nakedness comes in many forms, from full frontal to a nondescript set of clothes.  The next idea trashes most of that guess.

afterIslayabunchazombies--POSE...

2. Milla Jovovich in Clothes
While it can be assumed Ms. Jovovich has creative control over her wardrobe, she normally  chooses clothes that could be considered comfortable, functional, or feasible.  It can be assumed in the first movie in the series (back when we could only see Michelle Rodriguez as the tough Latina chick) that she was caught unawares when she was wearing the red dress outfit.  Over the course of the storylines she's gone from comfortable warrior to bondage queen.  This is not an overnight change: she didn't wear corsets until the fourth film and the latex costumes in the fourth and fifth movies seems to be the new norm. I guess they're trying to hide or incorporate the harnesses from the wire-fu shots, but c'mon.  Her wardrobe has some unintended consequences of influencing and highlighting Ms. Jovovich's acting style.

3. POSING
Ms. Jovovich's supermodel background has lent itself to the fine woman we see today.  The clothes she wore then probably were uncomfortable to wear, as they were designed for looks not comfort.  I keep mentioning comfort because if I were fighting zombies, I wouldn't wear a costume that could limit my range of movement.  As such, a fashion designer's runway collection and the PVC/platform boots costume from Retribution lead to many instances of posing--a stiff positioning of limbs for emotional evocation.  But hold the phone: she does this in her other, more comfortable outfit (the one where she uses a sawed-off shotgun filled with coins) and in her state of vulnerability/nudity.  In clothes, she stands legs apart and fires two guns while her waist is twisted slightly, making her look more powerful.  Without clothes (or just wearing some form of hospital shift that shows side- or under-boob), she is folded in a fetal position and/or low to the ground.  The implementation of these forms comes off as inorganic and they detract from the storytelling in this movie--what story there was to tell.

Enough about that, let's talk about the movie itself.
The movie tends to lean back into its video game roots, treating every challenge to be overcome as a level in a game.  This has the tendency to pop up in lazy screenwriting.  It did have its good moments, especially in subverting an age-old beef I have with the movie industry.  That makes up for a lot, but not much.

I would really like to hear more about Ms. Jovovich's musical career ("Gentlemen Who Fell" is still on my iTunes) or any other movie she's done.  If she has to make another movie about the Umbrella Corporation's crimes against humanity, then let it be the last Resident Evil movie in the series.

And the word the poster up top should replace the word "ultimate" with "pentultimate". It means "next to last", as in "you all need to end this movie series with the next film."  Please.

Cordoba Chronicles IV: Chapter 12

EPILOGUE

The 16th day of Rzandol, Axian Year 7803

The world is now a completely different place.

My master has seen fit to give me another chance to perform in the world of the Living. In its infinite mercy, I was pulled from the sublime embrace of Death by its hand and given many new powers. What would surely end the lives of others is now a mere nuisance to me. While I was given these grand gifts, I still had to pull myself from beneath a boulder.
Upon freeing myself, I saw what was a factor in my initial death. A Halfling male, aged 38, lay prone and broken at my feet in the ruined temple I created for my master. I looked about the broken walls and the ruins of my home above and thought that I should feel some feeling, yet I did not. Was this yet another gift from my master: the ability to know, but not be taken over by emotion?
True to the will of the Benefactor, I was indifferent at the knowledge that I escaped death at the hands of a sworn protector of a misguided male notion of what is “good” yet again. Males: always a thorn in the side of justice and what is truly right in the world. The claims of right and wrong issued from their mouths are but a hollow gesture to the women who have paid with their lives and their freedom in the wake of their wars. The only way, some males may say, to achieve peace. After many years of contemplation and experimentation, I have found another way.
It is my discovery that frightens the established world of thought, as have the necromancers who have preceded me on this material plane. The idea of order and balance in the world of mankind is aberrant to the minds of most males and their wiling whores. They see the actions of my like-minded practitioners as evil for evil’s sake. Nay, my work is not evil, but it fails to meet the ‘holy’ approval of the janissaries of the false gods. That is enough to knock the feather from their caps and label my work as they see fit.
Would they deign to know about this work and its practitioners, they would know that it is we—the mortal masters of the undead—that achieve what they can only promise in theory: peace and everlasting life. It is a form of mercy unknown to the false gods and their followers. The world has chosen not to follow the path of what is good and holy, relegating it to the back room as if it were a secret shame.

In response to the faint glow of my Adventurer’s Guild medallion, I believe that I should resume my duties as an Adventurer—nay, a Crusader, for I seek adventure no longer. I now seek to implement a solution long overdue.
It seems that my master has agreed with my decision, for it has showered me with all the tools I would need to complete my mission. Old texts and manuscripts, and even older artifacts have fallen through the gaps of the rubble and stone above my head. They are all useful components for my future campaign, my maps of Kinjeti in particular. Their proximity to the fallen Halfling’s helmet reminded me of a place I had not been to in some time.
The Collection Room had not changed since I last crossed the dimensional door from my basement (when it was still a basement) into the pristine white marble walls and myriad trophies. I passed by the shield of Bors the cleric and the last three daggers still locked in the bandolier of Va-shi the elven battle-mage, to an empty manikin head. I placed the helmet of the fallen Halfling paladin onto the manikin head, recalling the male’s name and writing it on the plaque below: Cyan.
As I left the dimensional door, the night’s gloom was of no comfort to me as it once provided. I looked above and saw Rzandol shining down. I climbed out of the chasm that was my home and laboratory and stood upon a sturdy part of my collapsed roof. The light of the moon flashed blue on my pale skin…and it reminded me of young Inia.
I had many applications for the positive results with my experiment in ectoplasmic and incorporeal manipulation and the resultant proof of my hypothesis that an incorporeal being, such as a ghost, can be returned to the world of the Living through spells. The details of my initial experiment with Inia’s immortal soul are detailed in an earlier log, but this latest development could only be a side effect of the resultant simulated aging and brain development of the average teenager. Falling in love, rebelliousness and general ignorance of the world around her was a sure sign that my experiment with Inia was far too successful.
There were to be no interferences in her life and my control of it, but an unanticipated variable entered into the equation that was my calculated experiment.
I’ll be damned if it wasn’t a male.

As my young subject goes off to the west, I can only look on through the cloud of iridescent green  dust for I must not fail my master a second time with the foibles of mortality, such as impulse. I will plot. I will plan. When my machinations are beyond the restrictions of any possible failure, when my grand army of the undead is a mighty force I will strike at the world and charge roughshod over the kingdoms and potentates of mankind. Then the world will join me in peace.

Whether they want to or not.

-Blackheart the Destroyer

Movie Review: Prometheus (2012)

Ridley Scott's ALIEN films have been a grand source of entertainment for me, exposing me to the interesting works of Swiss artist H.R. Giger.  It was his art that inspired the shape of the Xenomorph, the primary antagonist of the ALIEN franchise.  Science fiction writer Dan O'Bannon provided the screenplay, allowing for the atmosphere and many of the thrills, mystery and suspense of the film.  Later writers (namely the franchise's proper writers David Giller and Walter Hill) and directors (The Avengers' Joss Whedon, Titanic's James Cameron) left their mark on the franchise, with a mixed bag of results.  Mr. Scott's latest outing with the ALIEN franchise, Prometheus touches on the background story of a very important but little-explored race of extraterrestrials who are intertwined with the Xenomorph: their indirect creators.

These indirect creators are referred to as "Engineers" by Drs. Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) and Charlie Holloway (Logan Marshall-Green), archaeologists that find connections between several ancient cultures on Earth that all point to a grouping of stars in the heavens.  They have interpreted it to be the location of the homeworld of mankind's creators--their Engineers.  They soon pack their bags and join a crew for an interstellar flight on the starship "Prometheus" to the location indicated, funded by Weyland Industries (precursor to Weyland-Yutani Industries in the later ALIEN films) under the instruction of the hologram of the late Charles Weyland (Guy Pierce) and mission director Meridith Vickers (Charlize Theron).  They find a planet with a moon, marked as LV-223, in 2096 and land to investigate the strange structures found on long-range scans.  Their findings reveal that the structures are ancient and abandoned alien spacecraft, and that something that left behind a litter of alien humanoid corpses and several cylinders filled with an animate black liquid.  A sensible group of people would simply walk away and fly back home, but David (Michael Fassbender)--an android--has been secretly tasked to retrieve samples or a live specimen.  In his attempts to achieve his goals, hijinks ensue.

Strangers in the niiiight...exchanging glances....

It's safe to say that Mr. Fassbender steals the show even in light of Idris Elba's performance as Janek, captain of the "Prometheus".  Much of that has to do with the marketing campaign for the movie, which featured a character profile on the android.  It showed how complex of a creation he was, from interpreting different genres of art to complex mathematical and spatial computations.  When it came to concepts that would generally make a person sad (i.e., murder), David offered tears of sadness; when it came to accomplishing a task that his human counterparts would find unethical (ex.: violating a person's physical being in some manner) to achieve a goal, David stated that he would not have a problem doing such things.  These two examples of an incongruous and conflicting thought process along with a face devoid of emotion really sold the idea of Mr. Fassbender's android character.  Not bad for an 8th-generation Weyland Industries android fresh out of the box.

The film was sufficiently suspenseful, and entertaining as an exercise of human frailty and folly when faced with one of the most dangerous things in the cosmos: desire.