Movie review: Fast Five (and other such important news)

Saw Fast Five tonight. It was alright, everything I expected it to be; action, cars, lots of butts. Much like the other four movies. I would give it probably 2 1/2 - 3 stars out of 4, which isn't terrible. Admittedly the dialogue was super thin, but you don't go into a movie like this and expect to be wowed by what the characters are saying. Don't pay full price for it, but it's a fun distraction for two hours. 

However, I suppose more importantly, as I was walking out of the theater I was informed that the known terrorist and accused mastermind of the destruction of the World Trade Center, Osama bin Laden, was killed today by American operatives in Pakistan. I'm currently watching the coverage on CNN of the crowds gathered excitedly outside the White House. All I can say is holy balls fucking finally. Interesting that people have chosen to take to the streets around the country. I suppose in a time when our country agrees on next to nothing, it's nice to be able to take time to put that aside and just breathe a sigh of relief for one night. AMERICA, FUCK YEAH! COMIN' ALONG TO SAVE THE MOTHA FUCKIN' DAY YEAH!

Nerd Pillow Talk

 

"Okay, now you be Shatner"

I'm frankly astonished there wasn't a single "Great Scott!" orgasm or nuttin' from Back to the Future....

I would hit it so hard that whomsoever removes it shall be the next King of England...

So I'm watching the new series Camelot on starz and I'm a little unsure of how to feel about it. Thus far it's been fairly good exposition but I don't know about the players. It's mostly unknown people, although Joseph Fiennes is Merlin and Claire Forlani is Queen Igraine. I suppose that's the advantage of an extensive story being told on a network that's had good success with their original shows though, they can introduce the unknown and people will still watch. It's worked for the Spartacus series.

So far we have Arthur, who was removed from his mother's arms at birth by Merlin and given to another family to be raised, with no knowledge of his lineage, in order to keep him from becoming totalitarian like his father. Morgan, his half sister, who believes the throne is her birth right and will stop at nothing to obtain it, including black magic. Merlin, who has visions of Arthur uniting the kingdom but expects to control him as well. Kay, Arthur's loyal adoptive brother who has come with him to Camelot to help him achieve his goals. And Guinevere, who Arthur has fallen in love with, but is married to one of his knights.

I'll keep watching though, I'm looking forward to the introduction of more key characters and so forth.

And I do have to say, on a shallow point, the man who plays King Arthur's brother is smokin' hot. That is all.

A touch of random nothingess

A gem of Andy wisdom from Weeds - one of my favorite TV characters of all time.

 

Double win. Much like a ... double rainbow? Wait. That only applies to NPH.

Picture is unrelated

So in the two weeks it's been since I've had a full day off from work, my sleep schedule has shifted, and instead of staying up til 2 am and getting up whenever the hell I feel like, I've now been passing out at 11 pm latest and am consummately awake by 10 am latest. Only problem being I have nothing to do in those hours between waking up and going to work usually around 4. Clean the kitchen... check. Take a shower... check. Have lunch and watch 5 hours of a Law and Order: SVU marathon... sigh... check.  I can run all the errands I ever have in about 2 hours one day a week. Also this is also opening an ever bigger gap of nothingness on the days I don't have to work at all. Long story short I need a hobby or something.

Movie Snob in Action

So over the last week I saw two very different movies, Sucker Punch and Rango. One thing I enjoy doing the most is critiquing the things I've just spent an arm and a leg to sit through, though I've admittedly found a new theater recently, the Cinebarre off of 104th and Grant in Thornton, which only charges $5 for movies Monday-Thursday, so movie going isn't the same eye-gouging experience as it is at other theaters. On to the reviews! Mild spoilers.

Sucker Punch
Directed by Zack Snyder (300, Watchmen) and starring Emily Browning, Abby Cornish and Jena Malone. I'll be blunt. I did not enjoy it. The cinematography and graphics were interesting, but overall the fight scenes were the same things we've been seeing since the first Matrix movie. And for a movie revolving around chicks in tight costumes kicking butt, that doesn't bode well. The plot is thin and the performances were so-so. A lot of up close shots of Emily Browning looking all porcelain with her fake eyelashes and doll hair. And half the freaking premise of the movie is that she can mesmerize men with her dancing, but not once do you actually see it. Not to mention we basically get "incepted" again because it's a dream within a dream.

                                    Rango

This is a movie about a reptile (voiced by Johnny Depp) who gets separated from his owners and ends up pretending to be a small town old West sheriff in the desert. My sentiments unfortunately carry over to this movie as well. It had weird animation, which I guess was supposed to be part of it's "thing", but it was kinda graphic for a kid's flick. Which I know is the new selling point to get parents to take the offspring to the movies is the promise that it will be entertaining for both parties, but this didn't feel like the case. It had a LOT of grown-up references, which wasn't it's downfall, but didn't make the movie more appealing. I just felt no real emotion towards it, it made me chuckle a bit, but I was pretty meh about the whole thing.



I hope the upcoming movies will be better than the spring movies thus far. Although, I did really enjoy Paul.

Well... it ain't Ozzy and Harriet

"Boy, you got a panty on yo head."

More Geeky Excitedness

First I just want to salute Nathan Fillion on his 40th birthday for still being quite hot. If you haven't seen Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, we can no longer be friends. But also in my sphere of newsworthy brick-a-brack about a different captain, the trailer for Captain America is out. I'm more excited for this than Thor, though I'll be surely seeing them both. I like the small tip-of-the-hat to Iron Man, too.

Sweet Threads

RedBubble is a pretty interesting website, consisting of art created by the users which can be purchased in clothes, stickers or wall art. This is actually already the background on my computer, because it's both true and Futurama, which makes everything better. If I scrape a few sheckles together I'll probably buy it. You can change the color, get it in a hoodie or girl's tee, and move the graphic to the back if you want.

Futurama Crew t shirt - $21.95

Great Scott! Now that's badass....

"John McClane? Pffft."

I follow a blog called Badass of the Week which shares stories of people who are and can only be defined as badass. This is one of my personal favorites, a man who took one look at the tragedy occurring in Japan and punched it in the face. Just check it out for yourself: Hideaki Akaiwa - certified badass.

Worshipping a false prophet, but still not as bad as the gays

So this is the first time I'm attempting this so called "blogging" or whatever you kids call it. At this particular moment I find myself at a lack of anything interesting to say. I suppose I'll start with the most interesting thing that's happened to me recently, and unless you've been without web access you'll probably know what I'm talking about ('cause I'm a bragger). 

On March 22nd I met the film maker, actor, notorious airline rabble rouser Kevin Smith, most well known for his films like Dogma, Clerks, Chasing Amy, and as the mute half of the foul-mouthed duo Jay and Silent Bob. It was the closest to a geek-out induced heart attack I think I've ever come. I wrote him a fan letter in my sophomore year of high school and never received an answer, so the events of this night will be held dear to my heart. Needless to say he's an idol of mine.

I don't know how much any of you supposed readers know about his most recent movie, Red State, but here's a break down. Smith basically gave the world the proverbial finger when he decided to advertise and distribute it himself. So he's touring with it around the country as a preview. He came through Denver at the Paramount Theater and myself and three of my friends dropped the $80 each to go. We had heard the the Westboro Baptist Church had been showing up at screenings to protest and hoped to catch a glimpse. They were regretfully absent from this particular viewing.

So we get into the theater and were only 11 rows back from the stage. Smith comes out and makes a quick crack about the lack of oxygen (as all visiting celebrities do), says he wishes we could sit and talk all night but we've gotta get through this movie first. I believe he mentioned Red State is his proudest project. So the movie starts.

Now I'm not going to ruin the movie because honestly, when it comes out in October I think, SEE IT. I will tell you it's most closely classified as a horror movie, and while it doesn't conform to traditional horror stereotypes some pretty horrific things happen. Not a single character is safe, so don't get too attached to anyone. John Goodman plays his part masterfully. Michael Parks is spooky good.

After the movie Smith came back onto the stage for some Q and A. He said we were a bloodthirsty audience because you can't help but cheer at certain deaths. They set the microphones for questions up right at the end of my row. I figured if I didn't at least get up to give him the usual "I LOVE YOU COME BACK TO DENVER!" I'd regret it forever, so I got in line to ask a question. There were about 8 questions before me, and if you've ever seen Kevin Smith speak (like in an Evening with Kevin Smith) you know that if it's a good question his answer can go on for a while. Not to say that it's not enjoyable hearing his stories, but it felt touch and go for a minute if they'd get to me before the theater kicked us all out.

So the guy who goes a few people before me, he was super nervous, it was cute. His voice cracked and he said he wasn't sure if he could ask his question because of butterflies. So Smith invites him up onto the stage so he can feel more comfortable. The guy gets up on stage, Smith gives him a bear hug and hands him the mic so he can ask his questions and holds his other hand. The guy manages to squeak out "I just wanted to ask if I could give you a hug!" and everyone applauds.

I thought "I want a hug..." so when I got to the mic I asked if I could have a hug too. He pulled me up onto the stage and give me a big hug. You know, the kind of hug you can only get from a big guy. Then he hands me the mic and I asked me question. I'm not going to tell you what it was because it'll give away part of the movie. I handed him the mic back and he gave me his water bottle, I walked to the side of the stage and propped up on a speaker to listen to his question.

One of the greatest things about this experience was the realization that someone I've been seeing on the big and little screen for years is just a nice guy. While he was addressing the audience as a whole with his answer, he mostly looked me in the eye. Just a down-to-earth guy who enjoys telling stories about religious zealots and how much he enjoys boning his wife. It was an oddly solidifying moment in my life.

I wouldn't blame anyone if they looked at this blog and went TL;DR, and that's okay. It's a story in my life that needed to be told.

But if anyone made it this far, I have one more story. Smith told us about the picture I posted above, while they were counter-protesting the Westboro Baptist Church. He said Fred Phelps daughter, like the second in command who's in charge of the protests was there, and when she saw the sign that says "Dick Tastes Yummy" she just stared and slowly shook her head. He wanted to ask her if she was shaking her head to the outright gay statement of the sign, or if she thought to herself "No. No it doesn't".