The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug Main Trailer: The Little People, Back At Work Again…

Posted on October 1, 2013 by geelw

Er, NO… that’s not what the idiots who look down on us from D.C. will be thinking once they come to some of their senses and stop scaring the hell out of half the country with their needless grade school tantrum antics. It’s the official trailer to the second part of Peter Jackson’s latest Middle-Earth saga. I still need to see the first one (and thankfully, cable will be taking care of that soon enough), and I don’t plan to pay to see this one in a theater at all, but I’ll shoot over to a screening if I can get a pass. Speaking of getting a pass, I’m kind of burned out on these literary epics anyway, but I’d LOVE it if someone were to challenge making a great film our of something like Alfred Bester’s The Stars My Destination, Stanislaw Lem’s Eden, something from an Asimov or Bradbury WITHOUT messing it up with stupid action scenes and terrifically inappropriate casting decisions. Hell, make a serious animated flick for the cost of some overpaid superstar and I’m a happy camper.

Granted, SELLING that sort of creative film project to an challenged audience who wants to see those star faces and CG explosions is the real rub to deal with…

Dexter’s Finale In A Nutshell: Monty Python Did it MUCH Better in 1969…

Posted on September 26, 2013 by geelw

(thanks, Chadner!)

Oh, brother… I haven’t been so annoyed at a season of any TV show in ages. Granted, in the grand scheme of things, Dexter has its ups and downs, but this final season was so wretched that I had to post something about it in a mini-rantless post. Too many new characters (and way too many serial killers) were introduced only to be killed off, forgotten about or tossed into the last few shows as terrifically poor plot advancement as the episodes dragged out. And so forth and so on until that woeful finale where Deb finally gives up the ghost. Spoiler: she got shot (AGAIN!), but expired from an off screen affliction related to the coma she was in and Dexter shutting off her life support at the hospital, then carting her body off during the daytime during a not well shot chaotic scene as a big hurricane was brewing up. Bleh. I guess his killing clothes make him invisible to onlookers or something. Anyway, he ends up leaving his kid in Argentina with the escaped female serial killer he was sleeping with last season (don’t ask!) and he fakes his death (Kenny Powers did it better!) only to pop up in the Pacific Northwest as a lonely bearded lumberjack sitting in his creepy cabin as the show fades out forever. Yuk, bluck, What the F#@k?! Yeah, well… good thing I have a sense of humor (and YouTube)…

Need For Speed Trailer: Put it in “Park”, Pinkman…

Posted on September 25, 2013 by geelw

(thanks, joblomovienetwork!)

Oh, this is going to hurt, but here goes. We really do NOT need… a Need for Speed movie. Seriously. Aaron Paul may be a hot star thanks to Breaking Bad, but this soon to tank out effects-filled gasser isn’t going to gain him any fans unless they’re too young to watch him as Jesse but right in the clutches of this upcoming car flick. Not that it’s supposed to be a big thing to see an actor come off such a huge TV show ride as BB and make the leap to Oscar bait right away, mind you. I predict this will do well on opening weekend if there’s no Fast and the Furious flick rolling out at the same time, but anyone lining up looking for character depth may as well play Need for Speed: The Run, which was EA’s attempt at making a racing game play like a movie… and it didn’t work all that well despite the best of intentions. I’d laugh if there were a game tie-in on a console (I can definitely see a cheap app popping up, though) at some point next year. We gamers don’t have THAT short a memory (well, I sure don’t)…

Oh well, I’ll shut up now with my predictions and let this one find its level. If it’s in YOUR wheelhouse, enjoy the show. Me, I’ll hold out for the cable premiere and kick myself later if I was incorrect in my forecasting…

Dracula 3D Trailer: If This One Sucks, The Punsters Won’t Have Far to Look For Work…

Posted on September 24, 2013 by geelw

(thanks, CineFix!)

Hmmm… has adding the term “3D” to ANY film actually made it better? I can say a hearty “nope” and be smugly satisfied with that, but I know some of you will note that animated films get away with this all the time. OK, you may win on that technicality, so let’s narrow it down a wee bit: Has adding the term “3D” to any HORROR film actually made it better? Or are you just sitting there watching stuff fly at your face while wearing silly glasses and not really being scared? I thought so. Okay, maybe that gimmick DOES work in a few flicks, but Dracula shouldn’t be one of them. Oh well, I still think Asia Argento probably deserves much better work these days that being stuck in the upteenth reworking of Bram Stoker’s classic vampire tale, but I’ll hold off putting a stake through this one until I see it for myself… on cable.

Escape Plan TV Spot #1: No Movie For Old Men… Uh, Oh… Too Late!

Posted on September 23, 2013 by geelw

Or “I’m Getting Too Old For This $#!t!”. Or “Stop, Or My Hip Will Go Out!”. or “Aged Whine and Cheese”… and so forth and so on (I thought up about fifteen other titles). Yeesh, I don’t know who the target audience for this is other than those in on the joke or delusional people close to my age who still think these two aging granite-faced coots are going to be doing stunt work they’ve never done previously AND making a decent movie chewing up the same scenery together. Then again… I bet no one is seeing this for the “acting”, right? RIGHT?!

Yeah, I thought so…

Hmmm. If it were a flick packed with more former action heroes around the same age in that space prison trying to get out, mayyyyyyyyybe it would be good for a chuckle. On the other hand… that’s probably the plot of The Expendables 7, coming to a theater near you in oh, about three years (or two, if it’s straight to video, no chaser)…

Not Quite Taking Sunday Off…

Status

Ha! I’m still alive, folks. I was glued to a few other projects today, so updates have been nonexistent. That and I was sort of saving up my strength for tonight’s penultimate episode of Breaking Bad, which thankfully is supposed to be 75 minutes long (as is the final episode). I figured a few of the final eight shows would be a tad longer thanks to so much that needed to be wrapped up, so I’m happy to see the end rushing up and having enough room to breathe as things come to a close (even though a bunch of characters won’t be breathing when that final episode ends). Speaking on endings… Poor Dexter is going out with a confusing whimper with a terrible final season packed with too many characters, silly plot twists and (I can’t believe I’m saying this), TOO many killers in a truly confusing mess that seems to be every idea tossed into a big bowl, stirred around and dumped in front of the cameras. Bleh.

I still have the new season of Boardwalk Empire to catch up on, but I’m holding out until Breaking Bad is all done with. Thank goodness for HBO on Demand and what’s hopefully going to be a slow Saturday night in about two weeks…

Humor? So, Microsoft Says NOT To Stand That Xbox One On Its Side… Or Else.

Posted on September 20, 2013 by geelw

Given that the current model Xbox 360 can indeed be placed upright (although it can lead to disc scratching if the surface it’s placed on isn’t perfectly level and subject to being bumped into while playing a game or watching a DVD), it’s a given that some owners of the upcoming Xbox One will be looking to do the same with Microsoft’s new system.

However, according to this GameSpot UK article, a company representative says vertical orientation isn’t how the new console was designed. Of course, there will be a ton of hard-headed or space in that entertainment center challenged gamers who won’t follow the company’s “suggestions” at all or try out that standing position just once to “see if it works”, and you can never stop those folks from doing what they do.

On the other hand, I personally feel that there’s another, far sinister reason they don’t want you to stand that thing up… especially if you happen to do so and place that new, improved Kinect on the now top part of the system and power the thing on. To wit (actual test footage stolen from a Microsoft test facility):

(thanks, Donald Carten!)

Remember, you’ve been warned!

Dorkly Nails The Anti-Gaming Dolts To The Wall. Details at 11… Or Now.

Posted on September 18, 2013 by geelw

As usual, the media is going (pardon the term) ballistic in some spots over Grand Theft Auto V on a few very incorrect fronts that makes them look like a bunch of knee-jerk jerks who love to generate controversy for rating’s sake as opposed to being anywhere near truthful. Fortunately, the folks over at dorkly.com have a mighty sharp yet paradoxically blunt hammer that works well at smashing this sort of questionable “journalism” right it its face. Read it and maybe keep that link handy when you get into a debate with some anti-gaming troll who thinks they know it all because some guy or gal wearing a hair helmet and too much makeup told them so.

Also, if you’re even in a real-life event where a news crew rolls up to invade your privacy, shoves a camera and microphone in your face and asks one of the two stupidest question in the world you can ask someone who’s been through or witnessed hell (“How did you feel when…” or “What was going through your mind when…”), feel free to grab that microphone bop the “reporter” lightly in the head with it, hand it back and say “No comment, idiot. Go away and find someone else to exploit.”, walk away and go take a nice long nap or have a relaxing cup of hot tea. They’ll get it eventually.

Disney Is Turning That Movie Night Into Madness…

Posted on September 15, 2013 by geelw

Oh, hell no. Or, Come on, REALLY? Yikes. Granted, this second screen experience thing will only be at selected theaters, so there’s that. On the other hand, what the hell is Disney thinking here? This high tech mash-up of Rocky Horror Picture Show and Winky Dink is going to piss a lot of people off who go in happy and smiling with the kids thinking it’s going to be sooooo cooool. only to realize that ONE person with an iPad in a theater is a nuisance… but a few hundred with them is a whole new distracting light source and aural experience you DON’T want to sit through. That and why not just allow people who already OWN this on home video to download that app, stay at home and not have to go through hell as a lab rat for this experiment in terror. Nothing like a theater full of squealing, singing and arguing kids with their hipster doofus parental units (or anyone else with kids who buys in thinking this will be any kind of thine resembling FUN) to make your evening REALLY “special”, right? You’ve been warned… this has been a public service announcement.

Chucky… You’re Back (Again)! But You (Still) Don’t Scare Me…

Posted on September 10, 2013 by geelw

Oh, I dunno. None of the Child’s Play movies ever frightened me at all and the more violent Chucky flicks were more amusing and bizarre (and gory) than actually scary. So this recent attempt at freaking me out with a new (and sometimes CG animated) Chucky is falling on deaf eyes or something like that. Yeah, you can come over and film me while I watch this, but you’ll see what looks like a scream is act-ually a big, fat contagious yawn. Come on, you know you’re about to YAWN just by reading that word. Go on ahead. It’s supposed to work that way. Ready? One… Two… Three… Therrrre you go. See? And hey, if you didn’t yawn – read this again with the cat or dog nearby and they’ll yawn. Bet you a nickel.

Er, where was I again? Oh yeah – sorry Universal, this one didn’t do a thing for me. Yaaaaawwwwnnnn… Zzzz (and better luck next time)…