Is there a way out? Maybe so
But you’re too occupied to know
So turn that crank and spin that wheel
The pain? You’re not supposed to feel
And when that quitting time bell rings
Your aching body squeaks and sings
And back home then to eat and snore
Then Tuesday’s come – you’re back for more!
Goofy name of its main character aside, thanks to a snappy Elmore Leonard script, solid direction from Richard Fleisher and some enjoyable performances from its cast, you can’t not love Charles Bronson as a hard-nosed yet quiet Vietnam veteran turned single-minded melon farmer who simply wants to get his crop in while some people want him deceased for a few too amusing reasons.
The poor guy just wants to hire his labor from an eager pool of migrant workers of mostly Mexican descent, but a local hick/thug named Kopas tries to force his more local drunkard/bum laborers on Majestyk’s melon farm with the usual threats. Of course, Majestyk isn’t having any of this (just the thought of drunks picking melons is amazingly amusing), so his military training gets put to use, some asses are kicked and the former future vagrants and their “boss” get sent packing. The man’s got melons to pick and all fools are suffered VERY lightly…
So, TURBO wasn’t bad at all. The 3D is OK, the kids will dig it, the parents will get a laugh at the stuff that’s written in for them (which will lead to the kids BUGGING you with “What’s so funny?” until you have to shush them and say you’ll tell them later) and it’s bound to get some sort of sequel (even if it’s straight to video, as I can see a certain character wanting revenge).
For the record, you’re not seeing this for any Oscar-winning performances or the “best” in animation (although what’s here is quite good in that stylized manner expected of a CG family flick). But there’s nothing wrong with turning one’s brain off, plopping into a seat and watching a snail imbued with nitrous and possibly sports energy drink super-speed blaze around and exhaust nearly every possible gag about fast gastropods. I say NEARLY because it seems as if they’re saving the rest for that inevitable sequel. Not sure the same cast will be back (hey, money isn’t free!), but I bet there are a lot of actors who can sound just like the cast here and no kid will be the wiser.
Speaking of wiser, I’m guessing whatever good karma I have just got a kick up a notch as I was looking for a restroom after the show and while poking about the floor I was on, I opened a door and walked into a showing of Pacific Rim that was about a half hour away from the ending. I suppose I could have been a jerk, grabbed a seat and stuck around for the next showing, but I had to pee and I also needed to get to work on some posts today and a few other things I’d planned out previously (Hey, laundry sorting is important! Separating the pile into bags keeps it from forming into THE BEAST FROM THE CLOSET!*). I did pop my 3D specs on to checkout how the film looked and it wasn’t bad. Then again, I think I also left because I hate coming into a film near the ending (or hell, after it begins). I like watching stuff from the start and paying attention, not playing connect the dots (unless I’m re-watching Rashomon, Memento or Pulp Fiction one more time)…
Oh yeah, the restrooms were on a higher floor, which I found odd for such a huge theater, but oh well…
EDIT: Aha- I see that Dreamworks is as always, twenty paces ahead of me. There’s going to be a TV series called Turbo: F.A.S.T. (Fast Action Stunt Team), which will air on Netflix in December 2013, so there you go. I don’t use Netflix (*gasp!*), so like that that Arrested Development reboot, I’ll be missing this too. Hopefully, the series won’t drop all its episodes at once and burn itself out like AD did (the show always worked best in small doses), but I guess we’ll see what happens. Er, you who use Netflix will see what happens…
(*No, I don’t keep my dirty laundry in a closet and neither should you. It’ll stink up the place if left in too long AND it’ll fuse together into the shape of some elder god of dirty clothes and eat you as you sleep. You’ve been warned…)
That’s because I don’t own a tablet at all (tried a few, but I’m like Goldilocks – haven’t found one that’s “Just Right” yet), so I’ve been missing out on these cash-ins that pop up when new blockbuster flicks hit. In a way, I prefer these sorts of licensed games show up as cheaper, well-intentioned games than ones with bigger budgets, longer (but never long enough) development cycles and higher price tags. Anyway, the fine folks at Game Empire HD have saved me the trouble of buying a tablet just for this game (not that I would do this, mind you!) and have posted some nice videos of Pacific Rim: The Game in action on their YouTube page. Do please poke around and check them out. In the meantime, a trailer for the game to ogle since you’re here…
I like the arcade-like look and play to this, but would I run out and snap this up if I did have a tablet? Mmmmaybe… I tend to like more story to my games, but I don’t mind the mindless beat ’em up from time to time…
Ouch. Well, this looks pretty intriguing, that’s for sure. If you’ve NEVER seen the original film… YES, you should do so soon (as in if anyone asks “Whatcha doin’ this weekend?”, you’ll say “Watching OLDBOY!” and mean it!). I’ll admit to still wondering why Spike felt the urging need to remake a film that really didn’t need it, but hey, this remake thing worked for Scorcese with his multiple award winning The Departed, so perhaps Mr. Lee is onto something. Granted, Oldboy has got some meaner twists and turns than Internal Affairs did and the resetting of the story to a more Americanized setting may ruffle a few feathers… but again, it worked very well for Scorcese. I’m gathering Samuel L. Jackson doesn’t mind playing a total creep (and getting killed for that) again, as his intensity sure makes anything he’s been in lately pretty interesting. Well, except for that iPhone commercial… that made me hate gazpacho and measuring cups. And Siri (it’s a good thing I don’t own an iPhone)…
OK, not ALL the time, people. I’m talking about the reviews rolling in stating how cool Pacific Rim is. Even the much despised NY Post threw down a four-star rating and that’s rare for a CG-packed summer blockbuster their critics often slap around for assorted reasons. OK, they get it right with most of the overblown junk that hits theaters, but it’s a review that actually doesn’t go out of its way to toss a stupid jab at the president for no reason, so that’s a welcome relief. I’m also hearing of a few other skeptics getting their minds changed, so it’s all good. As for “reality” TV… er, don’t believe that rot at all unless you think real people waste hours arguing over petty crap (and the same petty crap on ALL those shows!)…
Other than a mistake about what happened to the airliner in the first Airport (see below for a plot spoiler if you’ve not yet seen that 1970 potboiler), Phil Hall’s book is a fun chunk of opinions on one hundred classic and not so classic flicks he’s seen and is worth checking out for his thoughts on 100 movies including some consider better than the “bad” label he slaps them with. Let’s just say if you REALLY liked Mystic River, Hall’s dissection of it will make your eyebrows crisp up but good from the lasers shooting from your eye sockets.
The author carefully notes early on that not everyone will like his picks and that yes, there are a ton of films that I wish would have made the cut in this volume. Amazing junk such as R.O.T.O.R. (in my mind, the “best” worst rip-off of The Terminator ever made) or the epically stupid A*P*E would have been superior to Gamera in terms of classic badness and hell, I’d have dropped the student film version of A Streetcar Named Desire in favor of a Moontrap, The Hidden II or even the Walter Matthau-directed Gangster Story, a film so awful I thought I was dreaming when I finally saw it very early one morning on TCM…
Yeesh. Just as I’m typing up another post about how Warner Bros. got the drop on me and ran a “new” Pacific Rim trailer (above) not more than five minutes after I posted the last post about them doing it, they go and drop THREE in a row, meaning they’re using robots themselves to get past my slower than usual defenses.
Hey, I can blame the heat, age, no socks today and the fact that I woke up too damn early (again!) on all that, but WB doesn’t care at all. Their new baby is getting decent notices, all they really want to know is when your ass is going and how many friends you’re bringing with you.
Oh yeah, they also want to know if you’re buying the Blu-Ray/DVD combo pack when it’s released around oh, December or January… Just nod for “Yes”, as there’s currently no selection for “No” at this time. You can stay on the line and a representative will be with you shortly, but I’m gathering it’s going to be a looooooong wait. And hey, how the hell did you get this number anyway?
Every once in a while, I get to thinking that parts of my boring life would make an interesting book, but thankfully, I haven’t done a damn thing about that. Sure, I’ve had adventures in babysitting, silenced a few lambs (hey, they were bugging me!) and maybe even raided a lost ark here and there, but in general, I really have no shocking stories of drug-fueled hotel trashing (well, there’s ONE story, but it wasn’t drugs, wasn’t in a hotel room and guess who had to clean up afterwards AND go to work the next day?), scandalous encounters with ladies of the opposite sex or anything like that. However, I have had some really bizarre jobs that kind of fit what I’m doing here on this blog-o, so hell, I may as well tell this long, dull story before I go and decide to forget the damn thing happened…
That clip above is from a 1968 Spanish horror film called La Marca del Hombre Lobo (Mark of the Wolfman)*, known outside of Spain as Hell’s Creatures: Dracula and the Werewolf, The Nights of Satan and Frankenstein’s Bloody Terror. I believe the latter title was exclusive to the US version of the film and note if you please that it’s the only title that mentions Frankenstein. Unfortunately, there’s not a Frankenstein to be found in the film… at least not in the original version. Apparently, the US producer had some legal issues with a different Frankenstein film he was trying to distribute, but snapped up this import and had an oddball animated sequence added in that combined the Frankenstein and Wolfman myths and brought the world… WOLFSTEIN!
Yeah, it’s about as silly as it sounds (and once again, I’ll need to do a Random Film of the Week on this one, as it’s got some interesting stuff going for it), but that’s not what were here to talk about. Anyway, back in 1981, 3D films were making a comeback and in addition to new movies coming from assorted major and independent studios, plenty of older 3D films were pegged for a second shot at potential box office success. If you’re read that link above, you’ve most likely guessed that a certain monster flick just so happened to have a 3D print floating around that, while not in the best quality, would probably be good enough to cash in on the revived craze for the gimmick before its shelf life expired. Don’t worry – we’re getting to the good stuff, folks. Keep reading… Continue reading →
Oops, I forgot to run this trailer yesterday, so here you go. Only a few more days to go before those theater seats get packed in by the drooling mobs of kaiju fanatics and their mental checklists, so expect to see the Internet world even more flooded than usual with Comic Book Guy-like rants and/or raves about what works and what some of these smarty-pantses think was done “wrong” by Del Toro and company in making their summer epic. Pass the oversize grain of salt, puh-leeze! Meh, some people are never happy (and that’s because if they ever got up in the air on a crane to direct a shot, they’d probably poop themselves and pass out from fear of heights.
"DESTROY ALL FANBOYS!" 