Explorations in Policing, Faith and Life (With a hint of humor, product reviews, news and whatever catches my attention)
Showing posts with label movies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label movies. Show all posts

Saturday, February 11, 2012

Sequels


Sequels

My second tour of midnights has gotten me thinking about sequels. The second time around for a movie, album, book and video game very rarely achieves the success of the first. Since I am in the very beginning of my midnight patrol sequel, it is too early to tell if it will be with the common fate of the sequel (think bad) or the more rare but possible “good” to "great" outcome. The following are a series of sequels; some the beloved younger brother (EB) but most the despised next door neighbor (DNDN).

Equal or Better (EB)

Star Wars…Empire Strikes Back
Wow a great adventure movie with a happy ending followed by a great dark movie with the big reveal. What can I say that has not already been said.

DNDN

The Matrix…The Matrix Reloaded
Right after the first movie I left the theater thinking, “I don’t know what that was but boy was it cool.” The second movie got lost in its own internal rules and attempt to come up with a relevant plot line that matched the promise of the first. It didn’t. On a side note this may be one of the times that a serviceable movie that could have stood on its own was a victim of the brilliance of the movie that came before.

EB

Doctor Who
The First Run…The Current Run
I love Doctor Who. When it was announced that they were going to start producing the series again, I thought there is no way it will be anywhere close to where they had it with Tom Baker. Eccleston and Rose were not all that bad but did not equal the greatest episodes from the first run. Then they found Tennant and he and Rose were everything that Doctor Who should be. Then they find this Smith guy and it can’t possibly be as good but Amy Pond comes with him and it has me thinking it may just be as good as the Baker years (and if I have been drinking I may even admit that it could possibly be better).

DNDN

Battlestar Galactica…Galactica 1980

Space battles, the enemies were cool looking red eye sweeping around Cyclops’s shinny metal head, cool nicknames (Boomer), good looking women (I was just starting to find that species interesting), mission to save their race from extinction, a robot that looked like my dog…Lorne Green! Just to be followed up by dudes hanging around earth for no particular reason with no special effects budget. I was young but not stupid enough to follow the second series.

EB

All Creatures Great and Small…All Things Bright and Beautiful (James Herriot).

Two books that where a match for each other. Warm, witty, English, was the reason I tried to name my oldest Tristan and was accepted into the University of Illinois Veterinary program.

DNDN

The Eye of the World…The Great Hunt (Robert Jordan)

The classic tale retold many different times. Jordan had a village boy who was not important, found to have special powers and needed to save the world but now has to run to stay alive till he can save the world. The first book was well paced, the characters felt and acted real and according to the rules that Jordan had set up. Just flat out fun. Then he got mired in this huge plot line with too many people, too many things to do and too many loose ends. Each book, after the first, got longer and the characters did less, even worse the characters became stereotypes of themselves and started acting outside of cause and effect. Disappointing.

EB

Star Trek: The Motion Picture…Star Trek (2009)

Love me some Star Trek. I even like the first movie even though they went dark and arty. But the reboot caught it just right. Adventure, friendship, humor, the created a world where you would have loved to have actually been with them there participating in it all.

DNDN

Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark…Indiana Jones: Temple of Doom. The first movie is an adventure with humor and a plot line that keeps you guessing. It is in my top five all time. The second is a ride at the local amusement park, it just moves from point A to Point B looking to give you a thrill but not looking for a reason to care. It is another reason to keep Lucas doing nothing other than supervise special effects.

EB

Cheers…Fraiser. One is a fun buddy comedy about the times and trials of a group of misfit friends from working class backgrounds. Fraiser is about the times and trials of a group of family members and friends who are misfits, generally from a upper class background. They were excellent.

DNDN

X-Files…Millennium. X-Files was great gothic mystery theater with a conspiracy overlay. Did Fox Muller’s sister really get taken by aliens or was it the government or a secret third party. Just who was that smoking man anyway? Was that a werewolf? Millennium, first it was about tracking down serial killers at the end of the age. Then it was a conspiracy theory tied to the end of the age, then it was about…wait I quit caring and turned it off.


EB

Shadowrun: Never Deal with a Dragon…Choose your Enemies Carefully. This was my first foray into the world of cyberpunk. I loved it and when it brought in fantasy elements into the story line in the second book it got even better.

DNDN

Ian Fleming-Man with the Golden Gun and Jonathan Cape-Colonel Sun. I loved reading James Bond Novels growing up. He was cool, he got the ladies, he was gritty, he was deadly and he saved the world, every time. When Fleming passed away they handed the torch to Cape who sent Bond on a bland parody of everything Ian had created.

EB

ACDC Bon Scott…ACDC Brian Jones. What is there really to say. Highway to Hell was followed up by Back in Black. 32 years later and both songs are in my MP3 player.

DNDN

Van Hallen Sammy Hagar…Van Hallen Gary Cherone. I thought that no one could replace David Lee Roth but Sammy stepped in and held his own with some of their best songs. As comic book guy would not say, “Best transition ever!” Then they tried it again with Gary and promptly blew up. They sounded old, weren’t relevant, didn’t seem to be having a good time and sounded terrible to boot.


EB

Resident Evil…Resident Evil 2. Fantastic. It brought me into the world of horror survival games that I have never left. Then they took everything that captivated me and moved it out of a home and into the city of Raccoon. There were more than a few nights that turned unexpectedly into days playing those two games.

DNDN

Shadowman…Shadowman 2. The first game created a mythos that was unique and unexpected. The serial killers as bosses was genius. It was also very hard. There were many times were I had to back track for thirty minutes to find the place or device or item I missed. The second game was whipped out, bland game, with no story line, pointless quests and too easy. Well it was too easy till you got to the final boss who was way, way, way, way too hard. A total waste of time.

I could have spent twenty pages on this so I just decided to stop here. I will probably come back to it since the topic is full of examples. As much as I have days of midnights left.


Joshua 3:7
And the LORD said to Joshua, “Today I will begin to exalt you in the eyes of all Israel, so they may know that I am with you as I was with Moses.

Thursday, June 2, 2011

End of the World!!!!!!!! Part, I don't know, sixty?

Its the end of the world...proof one hundred and sixty.







A Brief List of Zero Rated Movies and their box office revenue.








Zero Rated Movie                        Its Revenue


Sucker Punch                                  $89,792,502

Did You Hear About the Morgans?  $85,280,250

Saw IV                                            $139,352,633

Bratz                                                $26,013,153

Hostel: Part II                                  $35,619,512

The Devil's Rejects                          $19,390,029

Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo     $45,109,561

Wolf Creek                                     $27,762,648

The Life of David Gale                     $38,955,958



That's it!  Let's pack it all up! We're done here.  Let's find another planet to destroy.

References: listalwww.boxofficemojo.comhttp://rogerebert.suntimes.com/ and www.imdb.com

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Random Thoughts - John Carpenter

I am on Netflix and was sent John Carpenter's Ghosts of Mars.  Despite being an incredibly bad movie (you know there is a problem when all the director/writer of the movie/screenplay can talk about is the score he created with the help of aging rock stars) it seems that Carpenter was being just lazy.

Take his remake of The Thing (great movie) and turn the snow to sand, the prevailing color white for the color red, the transmission source from blood to sand, keep the formless aliens and also keep the sense of isolation and desperation and you come out with Ghost of Mars...well once you add in bad acting, bad script and crappy sets aaaaaaaannnnnddddd lets add a dash of the clothing ascetic from Escape of New York.
  
He simply ripped himself off and let us down.  This, from the man that gave two of my all time favorite movies: Escape from New York and The Thing.  Why would you phone it in when you are going to spend all the time and energy being the director, script writer and composer, wouldn't be simpler to attach yourself to another low budget project where you only spend 30 shooting days with the movie?  I don't know, it's just a random thought.

PS:  My daughter says he looks like Yoda.

Saturday, November 14, 2009

Why do all movies made from Video games stink worse than cheese on the radiator for three days?


I just finished watching the flaming Iraqi oil derrick that is Max Payne. I would really like that time back, standing on a street corner counting blue cars would have been a better use of my time.

Why do all movies made from Video games stink worse than cheese left on the radiator for three days?


I wonder why the transition between video game and movie seems to be such an insurmountable task. What follows is a brief list of this genre I have complied. Watch were you walk, you do not want to get these on your shoes.

Max Payne-great game in the noir style-bad movie in no style-note to director YOU NEVER USE THE BARRELL OF THE Heckler & Koch MP5KA4 you are carrying to open a door!!!!

The Resident Evils-The zombie genre is scary if you think it could somehow happen to you and you care about the lead actors/actresses-neither is accomplished here.

Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within-Cool lets make a movie that has nothing to do with any of the games other than the name, yes that will work.

Alone in the Dark-Christian Slater just what happened to you man?

Wing Commander-Thanks for getting bullet time technology to the Matrix Movies and your plot to Oblivion.

Silent Hill-great series of games that put gothic horror survival games into a new prospective.  The movie would have been better as a silent black and white film...made just all silent and all black.

Super Mario Brothers-Dennis Hopper and Bob Hoskins?  And it still sucked? How is that possible?

Laura Croft Tomb Raiders-Attention all future directors; a plot is like a tree with many branches coming off a central trunk-not a stright line like a 747 Jumbo Jet runway.

Double Dragon-I could finish this game in the arcade with just 50 cents-they could not finish this movie with two Lee Brothers and 15 million.

Street Fighter-Jean Claude Van Damme?  Wasn't Claude Jean Damme Van available?  Or Damme Van Claude Jean?  Finishing move...suck till it blows!

Doom-Not bad...well I had about 8 beers before I saw it...but it was not so bad...I mean I did not want to set fire to the set...

BloodRayne- You know how you meet a beautiful girl that suddenly gets ugly when her stupidity and witlessness comes out when she speaks?  Well it happens when they act too.

Mortal Combat-Moby sound track really really cool-Christopher Lambert really loved Highlander-I would say more but they pulled my horribly rendered spine with cord attached out of my crappy CGI body.

Ok I could go on but it is too painful.  I feel my dinner trying to escape my body in two spots.  Look for you own good please stay far far away.  Play the games and burn the movies.  Cheers.


1 Chronicles 4:10


Jabez cried out to the God of Israel, "Oh, that you would bless me and enlarge my territory! Let your hand be with me, and keep me from harm so that I will be free from pain." And God granted his request.