WALL-E

I took my son to see WALL-E on sunday. He had a blast. It is a very entertaining movie even for adults. Like most cartoons that I have seen lately, there are adult under currents running concurrently to the children's story.

The basic story is that Earth has been abandoned due to human pollution. The rivers are toxic, the cities are trash, nothing will grow. Technology has reached a point where humanity boards a spaceship for a five year tour. A company, Buy-N-Large, will under take a cleanup and return Earth to the humans. Unfortunately, it's so bad that the company abandons the effort and leaves humanity to spend an eternity in space.

Fast forward 600 years. WALL-E, a rolling, sentient trash compactor is relentlessly carrying on his directive, clean up. He's built towers of trash and lives in a small crate where he collects trinkets, spare parts and doodads. He watches a corny old human movie for a hobby and is really lonely. His only companion is a pet cockroach.

A spaceship lands and a new, sleek robot scans around looking for something. WALL-E falls in love and follows "her" around. This new robot posses powerful weapons and has no problem blowing things up and even comes closing to blowing WALL-E up. Eventually, the two make contact and WALL-E learns that his new love is named EVA. I would say her name is EVE but becuase of the way she pronounces her name, my son insists it is EVA.

Anyway, she continues her scanning directive and eventually finds what she is looking for, a living plant. She loads the plant into an internal compartment and goes comatose. I'll let you see the movie for the rest.

I couldn't believe how into the relationship between WALL-E and Eva my son got. He kept whispering questions to me, "Does she like him?" "Why does he love her?" "Is she mad now?" My son is 5, BTW.

The ending is what you expect from one of these, everyone lives happily ever after. This is not a complaint. That is how it should be. That's the movie we wanted to see. I think we'll probably buy this on DVD when it comes out.

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Dead and Deader: A Review

Just so you know, I don't review every movie I see. A movie has to have something in it to make me want to write about it. It has to be worth me recommending others to see, it has to be exceptionally bad, or it has to be just quirky enough to make an impression. Dead or Deader is one of the quirky ones.

This is a SCI-FI channel movie. You can tell because it starred Dean Cain. ;-) Dean Cain seems to be this generations Vincent Price, the king of low budget sci-fi and horror movies. That's not meant to be an insult. Price is a legend. In 50 years, I bet people will talk about all the B-grade movies Cain did.

Dead and Deader is about a special forces type team sent into the jungles of Cambodia to check on a humanitarian relief team that has not been heard from. The team finds some dead bodies of what looks to be military men and a bunch of creepy scorpions in terrariums. While they're looking around, they're attacked by some undead soldiers. While fighting, a still live scientist looking guy hurls a grenade and blows up the room.

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The next scene is Dean Cain getting autopsied. As the doctor is about to cut into him, he opens and his and asks what the heck the doctor thinks he's doing. Seems the whole team was killed and the doctor is trying to figure out what killed them. The doc calls in a female doctor, a superior officer. She tells Dean that he's really dead but Dean doesn't buy it.

Dean wants to see his team and about that time finds out that he has some kind of mental connection to his undead team mates. He takes off to find one of them at the same time his undead team mate decides he's hungry. Only protein will do! While fighting the undead team mate, the female doctor is bitten and becomes undead. She quickly becomes really dead (the ceiling fan episode is completely unrealistic but fun to watch).

It's here that Dean meets his side kick and things really heat up. If this sounds like a really bad movie, you would mostly be right. The thing is that they built in a lot of humor into this movie. Sight gags and one liners abound.

It's not as funny as Army of the Dead and it's not a particularly gory movie. Some nasty bits with body parts, fluids, vomit, etc. Can't touch the really gross movies though. Special effects are ok but most of the body parts look like fake body parts.

All in all, I give this movie two thumbs up. As long as you go in expecting a funny, semi gory sci-fi channel movie, it won't disappoint. It's a couple of hours you won't ever get back but pop some corn and get a cold beverage on a boring night.

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Juno: A Review

So, my wife has been using Netflix to catch up on all kinds of TV stuff like Desperate Housewives and Next Top Model. Stuff I really have no interest in.

On Friday, a movie showed up. It was Juno. Now, I have heard of Juno but didn't really know what it was about. I asked the wife and when she told me, I figured "chick flick". I was right too.

The movie is about a 16 year old girl who gets pregnant and wants to give the baby away for adoption. Tears, laughs, etc. Yeah. It is that.

I decided to watch it with the wife. Brownie points if nothing else, you know.

Even though it is a chick flick (your girl will cry at the end, I'm sure), it is actually a very funny movie. I don't recognize the main girl from anything but she plays the offbeat Juno with a straight face and her timing is excellent.

The boyfriend, Bleeker, was in superbad. He plays pretty much the same part in Juno that he did in that. He's funny.

Jennifer Garner and Jason Bateman are both in it. Odd casting for an odd movie and it all works somehow.

So, if you are a chick, you want to watch it. If you are a dude, you want to watch it with your chick. The women will enjoy it and the men get some painless cuddle points. Everybody will get a few laughs.

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Day Zero

I caught another movie on Netflix.com tonight. It's another movie I have never heard of. The synopsis said it was scifi but it's not really. It's more speculative fiction. That's nitpicking though. The movie is Day Zero.

It's a very near future biopic of three friends who are New York City residents. In this near future America, the draft has been reinstated so that we can fight the war on terror all around the world. All three friends lose the lottery and are drafted. They have 30 days to present themselves for induction.

The three friends handle the issue very differently. The successful lawyer, who has just been made a partner, doesn't want to go and asks his father to try to get him out of it. The successful writer, who hasn't actually lived at all (but has been to Malaysia), completely freaks out and goes off the deep end. The not successful cabbie, the fighter with a troubled life, handles it the best. He supports the draft and while not eager to go, accepts it as his duty.

They picked some really good people for this movie. You can get the entire cast list at the wikipedia entry above. I just want to say that Elijah Wood puts in another excellent performance. He plays Aaron, the writer. He sees a psychiatrist, is afraid of his shadow and has never really lived. He is so meek it's almost painful. Most of the funny scenes are his. By the end of the movie, he is creepy scary as he descends into his top 10 list.

This is another movie that I expected to suck that surprised me. This movie is definitely worth watching. Regardless of you political views, if you wonder at all where the "war on terror" might go, you should watch this. The gamut of political viewpoints are shared in the story but the director does not preach. No view is made to be "the truth". This isn't a liberal or a conservative movie. It's just the story of three people and how they respond to being drafted.

LewisC

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Primer: A Movie Review

I had some free time tonight and decided to hit Netflix Instant View to see what was available. I've watched just about everything that has any interest to me. There are quite a few documentaries that I haven't seen yet but I have to be in the mood for one of those.

Anyway, I noticed a 2004 flick called Primer. I didn't really think I would like it as I had never heard of it. I like B movies though so I was hoping it would be one of those classically bad movies that I can enjoy.

It is not a B movie. It's a movie written and produced (for USD7000) by an engineer. He wrote the movie like it would be engineers watching it. At times I was a bit lost but the movie proved to be incredibly intense. Much better than I anticipated.

A couple of engineers decide to make a room temperature super conductor. I don't think that was the goal. I think they were trying to do something with gravity but I'll have to watch it again to be sure.

They finally get a proto-type working and one of the engineers happens to notice a slimy film on the weeble they are using as a weight/test subject. The film turns out to be a fungus that could not possibly have grown in the amount of time it did. After some tests with watches, they decide that they really have built a time machine.

Hilarity does not ensue. They decide to travel themselves and make some cash. Things happen. Watch it.

What I liked about this movie is that it is a zero action movie. I don't mean that in a bad way. There is plenty of tension. There are multiple mini-plots arcing around the main plot. There are a couple of mini-plots I got completely lost on but that was still unimportant to the overall story. I'm sure I will get those on the next watching and I will be watching it again.

If you don't give a rat's ass about science, time travel, super conductors or casuality, don't watch this movie. You have to already understand, at least conceptually, the finer points. If you want everything explained and wrapped up for you, definitely don't bother. It just does not happen.

This is a movie like I might make in my head while day dreaming. The writer just happened to think of a few things I might not have. There is plenty of dialog and the dialog sort of replaces action. That's normally a bad thing but in this context it works.

The quality of the film is amazing for how much was spent. I mean USD7000! The actors had to have done this for free. Speaking of which, while no Oscars will be won, the acting was pretty good. Sound quality was good, too.

All in all, two thumbs up.

Check it out.

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Red Cockroaches: A Movie?

Ok, I read a review of this movie, Red Cockroaches, at SCIFI.com. Based on that review, I bought a copy from Amazon. Let me tell you that SCIFI.com thinks a lot more about this move than I do. If you haven't seen this movie and don't want to be spoiled, stop reading here. Although, you might be glad to never see this movie.

I am a fan of B movies. I really am. Supposedly this movie had a budget of $2000. Had the writing, directing or acting been better, it might have qualified as a B movie. The plot isn't just non-existent, it's stupid. B movies at least need a hokey plot!

The plot, what there is of it, revolves around a strange guy living in New York. He's angst ridden and hairy. Mommy won't visit him in his apartment so he visits her. He gives mommy a little pyramid key chain and a key to his apartment. She accepts the key and gives him a cat which he gives away to a little girl before he even makes it back home. I wonder why she has visitation issues?

Ten years ago, dad and little sister died in a car wreck. Oh wait, she's back. He sees her on a subway station where she drops a tooth and disappears. A tooth? Yep. Weird? Yep. The tooth is hot to the touch. Weirder? Yep. Significant? Nope.

The science fiction in this movie revolves around tv commercials about a cloning company called DNA 21 and warnings about acid rain. The acid rain line makes about as much sense as red cockroaches. This is not science fiction, this is a bad movie using science fiction to find a niche to live in.

Anyway, sis is back. After the wreck with dad in New York, she ended up in a coma for 9 years. That must have been on heck of a wreck because the hospital she ended up in was in Paris. France. Yep.

So, to make a long story short, they have nasty monkey sex in the kitchen. This is where they use the ketchup inappropriately. They have a history of him doing stuff to her. She kills the landlord. Mom visits finally and finds them bumping uglies. She freaks out, falls down and hits her head on the little pyramid keychain. She dies. As sad as all this sounds, it turns out well at the end when brother and sister die in a car crash.

Red Cockroaches is directed, produced, written and edited by Miguel Coyula. I've never heard of him. At 82 minutes, this film is about and hour and ten minutes too long. The main actress, Talia Rubel, seems somehow familiar. Creepy but familiar. While watching the main actor, Adam Plotch, I kept thinking that he has got to be related to Matt Dillon. I swear he's his son or a younger cousin or something. I think this might be a made up name as I know I would be too embarrassed to use my real name.

If you are a fan of badly written, acted and directed incestuous, tripe with an SF twist, this movie is a must see. Otherwise, save your money and buy an old "Three Stooges Go To Mars" dvd.

LewisC

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Review: Doomsday - The Death of Superman

Close to a month ago, I blogged about Doomsday - The Death of Superman. As I said in that post, I really wanted to see it. I just finished watching it a little while ago. I planned to buy the DVD but I noticed that it was on pay per view so I watched it with my son.

He is 4 and he lost interest within the first few minutes. This is a very adult cartoon. Not in language or sex or anything but in themes. There were a few brutal parts, Doomsday crushes a soldier's head for example. The movie shows Doomsday grab his head, the camera angles away and you hear the crushing sound.

It's not just the insinuated violence that makes say it's adult-themed. The relationship between Lois and Kal-El is very adult and the show spends quite a bit of time on that relationship. The reactions when superman dies are equally adult.

I'm not complaining. Though my son lost interest right away, I thought it was a very good movie. Great graphics and animation. Good color. The story and action were well done. I would watch it again.

It wasn't the book though. The book The Death and Life of Superman and the Graphic Novels were much deeper and contained several concurrent plots. There were many characters involved.

This movie mainly concentrates around the initial fight and death of Superman and then into Lex Luthor, Clone Superman and Superman rebuilding himself. That was kind of disappointing; to know how much story there was and for the movie to be so limited.

I think the only way to really do this justice would be to make it a mini-series. And while I would watch it, I'm not sure how many others would. It's too adult to hold a small child's attention and not many adults want to sit through several nights of cartoon.

I can heartily recommend this DVD to any genre fan though. If you are a fan of Superman, which I have always been, this is a must have. If you are a fan of comics in general, this is a good addition to the collection. If you don't really like animated movies or if you are thinking of a movie for your child, I would say to stay away.

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Doomsday - The Death of Superman

I have been a sci-fi freak for decades but even before that, I was a Superman freak. When I collected comics, I had a stash of about 3000 and many of those were Superman, Action Comics, Superboy and other superman related comics.

A few years back, there was a graphic novel called Doomsday where Superman dies. It was rewritten as a regular novel (which I have laying around here somewhere). It was a very good novelization with a very good story line.

Warner Bros is coming out, 9-18-2007, with a new animated movie, Doomsday - The Death of Superman. I don't have all the details but I believe it is a feature length animated movie. Check out the trailer:



LewisC



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New Star Trek Movie Coming

From Yahoo News, Nimoy to reprise Spock role in Trek film, it looks like a new Star Trek (with the Capt Kirk/Spock crew) will be out by Christmas 2008. JJ Abrams (Lost fame) is directing. Leonard Nimoy reprises his role as spock and the article says there will be a "young spock". The article also mentions that it is likely that William Shatner will play Kirk again. I wonder if this is the "Early Days" movie I have been hearing about? Why have old and young though? Hopefully, it will not be a flash back movie! I'll go see, though, regardless. LewisC scifi reading movie

Transformers: A Review (Seriously!)

This is a review of both the book and the movie, Transformers. I was recently in Books a million and saw a display for the new movie Transformers. Actually, the display was for a novelization of the movie by Alan Dean Foster. If you don't know Alan Dean Foster he did the novelization of at least the first Alien movie (and I think more), Krull, a bunch of original Star Treks, Pip and Flinx, Outland, the Spell Singer series, and about a bazillion more. If you read, you have probably read something from Alan. Transformers, the book:

• Mass Market Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Del Rey; Mti edition (May 29, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0345497996
• ISBN-13: 978-0345497994

I was a fan of the transformers in my late teens when they first came out. I've always been a fan of comics and cartoons. As a fan, I decided to pick up the book and give it a read. My son wanted to see the movie (he is a HUGE fan) so I figured I could use "research" as an excuse to buy it. If you don't know the premise, it's fairly simple. A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away a battle raged between intelligent cybernetic beings on a planet called Cybertron. The good beings are, being autonomous, Autobots. The bad guys, being deceptive, are Decepticons. Combined are they Cybertronians? Cybertrics? Cybertronner? The war between good and evil starts to destroy Cybertron so the All Spark, the special energy cube that gives life to inanimate (but only complex inanimate) objects, is ejected into space to prevent Megatron (leader of Decepticons) from getting it. Megatron goes after the cube and after thousands of years, both arrive on Earth. Eventually the good guys follow, followed by additional bad guys. The story is about the search for the All Spark, the battle between good and evil and two horny teenagers. Sam Witwicky, bumbling teenager, manages to, ineptly, steal the girlfriend of the ultra-macho, footballer bad guy. The girl, Mikela, is poor where Sam is solidly middle class. In the meantime, the Men In Black, are tracking Sam and Mikela down and the Secretary of Defense is trading witty banter with a green haired punk rock computer genius (in the book anyway, the same character in the movie is an attractive blond with an British accent). The movie ends in a crescendo of robotic violence of epic proportions. I'm not sure how many more cliches could have been squeezed into a single novel/movie. The weird thing is, it works. The novel is better than the movie but only because Alan Dean Foster is a master and he can spend more time building the characters. An example of the time spent on characterization is this bit from an early scene in the book:

Later, as they cruised back toward town, her voice rose above the hum of the Camaro's engine as the car coasted down a hillside road. Sunset muffled the light but did nothing to mute her continuing rant. "I cannot believe I am here," she was saying. "You can duck down if you want," Sam suggested helpfully. "It won't hurt my feelings." She flicked her eyes at him. "Duck down? Are you crazy? Not with you, in your car. Here, in this situation." Leaning back against the headrest, she implored the heavens. "This serves me right. God, I've got such a weakness for hot guys." So this is what grandma meant when she used to talk about someone making her feel knee-high to caterpillar, Sam mused as he mumbled a response. "Yeah, that, that is a weakness."

The story is enjoyable on many levels. My four old, whom I did bring to the movie with me, was only impressed with the last 15 or so minutes. I, on the other hand, read the book in about 8 hours and then two weeks later was held spellbound for the entire two hours and twenty three minutes. The other audience members, who seemed to range from young teen to elderly, were also spellbound. The theater resounded with applause in several places and the applause lasted for several minutes at the end. This movie/book combination has something for everyone. Drama (teen angst, alien invasion, politics, world war), humor (the way the autobots talk, computer geek inside jokes, Sam's slightly tipsy mom and his "special time"), special effects (transforming giant robots), military jargon, and so much more. Some of the humor is decidedly adult but much of it is straight at the teen demographic. Maybe it's just because I am an old fan but I would be willing to see a part 2, if there is one. Want to take odds that there will be? Alan Dean Foster has written a prequel to the movie, Transformers: Ghosts of Yesterday (Transformers (Ballantine Books)). I plan to buy this the next time I am in a book store. If you need a book to while away a lazy weekend or if you have a few hours to burn on a movie, you could do worse than Transformers. LewisC