august5excursion

I've been a bit lax lately but I've also been really really burned out.


So sue me.


You won't get nothing because there ain't nuthin left.


Nevertheless, I recommend a new syndicated show LEGEND OF THE SEEKER. I've just watched the first 3 episodes and I love it already. It's from Sam Raimi and Rob Tapert, the wonderful guys who brought us HERCULES and XENA and it's in the same fantasy style with new characters. It's based on some books which I have not read before so I have no idea if it follows them at all. But it is fun, extravagant, and way over the top just like the previous shows. I have missed this sort of thing since they went off the air. You can see it on HULU, of course.


QUANTUM OF SOLACE was very good but not a good as CASINO ROYALE. Lots of tremendous action sequences. A good story. And much more humor than other reviewers are willing to admit. Exotic locations, beautiful women, and much more interaction with M, Judy Dench. The only thing really bad about it is an absolutely horrible opening theme song. It's one of the worst songs I have ever heard, not just theme songs. Ugh.


Also full of tremendous action sequences was Luc Besson's TRANSPORTER 3. Jason Statham actually looks like he could really beat the crap out of fifteen tough guys at the same time. Talk about ripped. How he manages to be so low key at the same time is quite impressive. The driving stunts are worth the price of admission all by themselves. Just as good as the first two movies in the series. I had a private showing all to myself. It doesn't get any better than that.


THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL takes off instantly and doesn't waste any time getting into the story. I was very pleased with this remake. They did a much better job than the critics are implying. It looked great, had excellent pacing, and was thoroughly interesting all the way through. It held up extremely well compared to my memory of the original. I don't think anybody does the I'm not quite human routine better than Keanu Reeves.


So I enjoyed all these films and shows immensely. TERMINATOR SALVATION with Christian Bale looks real good as does STAR TREK from JJ Abrams. Surprisingly, RACE TO WITCH MOUNTAIN with Dewayne Johnson (The Rock) looks like it might be very entertaining. THE SPIRIT also looks much better in the 2nd trailer than the first one did. And X-MEN: ORIGINS - WOLVERINE looks fantastic.


But the funniest tagline, "Nothing says 'Date Movie' like a 3D trip to Hell," belongs to MY BLOODY VALENTINE 3D, which I doubt I'll bother with. But it did make me laugh my head off. Which with a 3D slasher flick may not be the best reaction.


Good stuff, huh, Maynerd?

NIGHTS IN RODANTHE vs QUARANTINE = romance vs horror, not a very good comparison. Depending on your point of view.

I took my wife to see NIGHTS because she loves that sort of thing and has read several of Nicholas Spark's novels on which it's based. I knew it was a chick flick going in. But I like Richard Gere and I absolutely love Diane Lane so I figured I could survive. Unfortunately this movie moves so slow it was hard to keep from falling asleep. It is a tear jerker but not a very potent one. Despite having A-list stars the relationship wasn't terribly exciting or compelling so when Gere goes away and dies it was no big deal. At least to me. Essentially, I felt this was a Lifetime TV movie with a slightly bigger budget. I wouldn't recommend paying money to see it. Everything about it is small scale, even the hurricane is no big deal; there's no emotional reaction to it or even much of a visual impact afterwards, just a few pieces of debris laying around. Another thing that didn't work was the soundtrack. Several of the songs they used were awful and didn't fit the scene at all. Lane gives it her all as she usually does but Gere is very one dimensional so there isn't much chemistry. I've enjoyed several chick flicks in the past but this one was just a TV movie in disguise. 2 Grins.

5 REALLY BIG STUPID GRINS, however, go to QUARANTINE which has to be one of the best (if not THE BEST) horror movies I have ever seen. No name stars at all. No musical soundtrack. Several scenes in pitch black. And only one camera, handheld at that. Much like CLOVERFIELD the film takes the first twenty minutes to introduce the characters before everything goes to hell. A TV reporter and her cameraman are doing a fluff news report on a local fire department so the entire film is what the cameraman is taping as they leave the firehouse on what they think is a routine call. When they get to an old rundown apartment building they find out there have been blood curdling screams coming from the apartment of an old woman. Naturally they find a dead body and the old woman is standing there with blood all over. She's also foaming at the mouth. Then she attacks and the movie becomes one jump out of your seat shock scene after another. I think I got whiplash because I jerked back so many times. I've never seen anything that startled me as many times as this movie did. You never knew when any of the shocks were coming because there were no musical cues or other tipoffs. Bam! There it was, right in your face. Yes, it was rather gory, but it wasn't overboard in the let's see if we can gross you out manner most movies use. This film actually tried to scare you to death not just turn your stomach. It was obviously effective judging by the audience reactions. After several rapid fire deaths you might ask why everyone didn't just flee the building? That's because almost immediately the CDC shows up and quarantines the building essentially sealing it shut in heavy plastic. When one of the people tries to get out a sniper puts him down with a head shot that happens right in front of the camera. This ratchets up the tension and dread because everyone begins to realize no one is coming to help them. It's no secret that a super strain of rabies is the cause of the disaster and the explanation for it is plausible. The camera jerks around a lot, it's almost constantly moving, light comes in unexpected flashes. You motion sickness wimps might have a problem. Even though the film has no music to speak of, it is very noisy with lots of screaming, yelling, building creaking, sirens, alarms, helicopters, bullhorns. The sound a body makes after a several story fall down the stairwell is truly cringeworthy. The image is so unexpected you will already have jumped out of your seat.

Truly this is one of the scariest movies I have ever seen. Highly recommended to scifi-horror fans. The squeemish need not apply. I read about 8 reviews before seeing the movie that revealed far more detailed details about some of the scenes I mentioned. Even knowing all that ahead of time did not lessen the impact. The more I think about it the more I think this really was the best horror movie I've seen.

I took my daughter and future son-in-law with me and they agreed. My wife wouldn't watch something like this if you paid her. So I guess, at least this week, that romance can't light a fire to good old fashioned horror. Well, it is October after all.

Yesterday I saw BABYLON AD and I have to say it isn't as horrible as almost all the critics say it is. The trailer looked very exciting and that's mainly because all the exciting parts are in the trailer. Unfortunately, the movie is full of all kinds of potentially great ideas but doesn't do anything with any of them. Are you familiar with the phrase, "Direct to DVD"? That's the quality level you get here. The director claims the studio messed up the film but I have a hard time believing that. Since he also wrote it, I have the feeling all the big ideas were only half baked to begin with. I'd give it 2.5 grins.

Last week it was DEATH RACE. A much better movie in every way. Jason Statham is so ripped he makes Vin Diesel look like a wuss. It's a prison movie so it's full of all the macho badass types you would expect. But the biggest badass is Joan Allen as the warden. It's the future and prisons are run by corporations for profit. Joan's prison is the home of DEATH RACE, an internet pay per view extravaganza. Survive 5 races and you win your freedom. The cars are heavily armed and armored although certain features only work when activated by remote control by the warden. This is loud extreme stuntman driving, not much CGI. So it's ridiculous but very cool. I give it 4 grins.

The week before that was MIRRORS because you gotta have some horror now and then. It was genuinely creepy, extremely atmospheric. It had me going for quite awhile but then it blew it when Keifer figured out who was the key to all the bad things he was seeing. The film ground to a screaching halt at that point although the not unexpected twist at the end was stylish enough to redeem it somewhat. The movie has some extremely gory gruesome scenes including a woman's jaw being ripped off her face in the bathtub. Yeah, it's as disgusting as it sounds. I give this one 3 grins, it would have gotten 4 if the mystery had lived up to the buildup.

Last Monday I stepped in a hole and landed on my arm with my full weight. My arm jammed into my ribs causing some severe pain and no doubt internal bruising. I really needed to stay home to get some rest and not move but it's back to school time at work and the new boy who's only been there a couple weeks called off and the DM also dropped in again. So somehow I managed to work all week. But it was a miserable experience. BTS is ridiculous anyway with all the stupid deals we do. People would have 75 or more items to check out and the total would come to 54 cents because of all the freebies. And then they yell at us because our margin budget is shot to hell.

The damage I did to my ribs Monday night has worn me out all week and it really caught up with me last night. I've taken like 4 or 5 naps already today and it's only noon. I missed all the sailboats. But even though I'm still very sore every little cough or hiccup isn't killing me anymore.

It's headed for 90 today so I'll be inside (and my wife took the car) so I won't be out and about. And I still get off tomorrow, too!

The DM visit yesterday was rather disgusting, he never said a word to me, which is fine. I made tremendous progress in the backroom the last couple of weeks since I actually had time to do my own job. I got rid of over $10,000 worth of damages that had been piling up since inventory. That's a phenomenal accomplishment in anyone's book.

Except my DM's

I opened the store this morning and what do I find? My backroom has been trashed. I mean that literally. There's crap everywhere. The place looks like I never touched it. I was rather upset to say the least.

I knew what happened but I waited until the Ops Manager came in to get it verified. The DM waited until I was gone yesterday, then went on an inspection. He wasn't impressed with what I had accomplished so he proceeded to pull every tote I had neatly stacked, open them up, dump the contents and then leave it like that. He then called the GM and the OM back, read them the riot act, reamed them both a new one, and made me out to be a total piece of shit. Which means I get reamed personally when the GM comes back tomorrow.

Needless to say, I didn't even bother to try picking any of it up today. That's bullshit. What kind of moron runs a business this way?

I have to open the store again tomorrow and as I was leaving I noticed that I'm scheduled to open next Wednesday, too. That will be funny since I will be on vacation and have no intention of coming in. At first, I was going to mention this little faux pas but then I looked at my backroom on the way out and decided not to. Screw them. It will be vastly amusing to have no one able to get in the store until 10 when one of the managers shows up. We will see what kind of hissy fit the DM is capable of throwing then.

It probably won't happen that way but it's fun to think about.

Every fibre of my being is screaming, "QUIT,YOU FOOL!!!!" but how can I do that? How many times have I wanted to do that? The only jobs you find listed on any of the jobsites for this area either require 5 or 6 master degrees or a willingness to perform illegal activities.

Frankly this is the most pathetic attack on me at work since my factory boss told me I was worthless as a human being shortly after my stroke. Who wants to work for a petty little, hot tempered fool, who would literally trash your work area because he didn't like what you did. The jerk didn't even have the decency to do it to my face, he waited til I was gone before going on his rampage. I probably would've quit on the spot if I had been there regardless of the consequences.

I am so tired of working for morons.

Hellboy II: The Golden Army is a sequel that is so far better than the original that it's impossible to think of it as a sequel. In fact, this movie is so far better than anything else I've seen this Summer that I want to give it 7 Big Stupid Grins on my 1 to 5 scale. This is how you make Fantasy movies.

First off, you get Guillermo del Toro as your director. Give him lots of money. Let him bring in his army of imaginative geniuses and then get out of the way. If this film doesn't make you drool all over yourself just thinking about what he will do with The Hobbit, well, then, you must not love Fantasy, Epic Fantasy.

I already made it clear before that I think del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth is a masterpiece, one of the best movies ever made. That film is small and intimate but stunning in its impact. Hellboy II, on the other hand, is huge, more imaginative than ten other movies combined, and so stunning it will knock your socks off. There is more creativity on display in this movie than practically anything you care to mention.

This is a living, breathing, fantasy world populated with some of the most bizarre creatures you will ever see. But you will believe every last one of them is real. The make up/special effects are so good that you never once think you're looking at something that only exists in a computer. During one scene a creature is holding a baby to its chest. When someone remarks, "Cute baby," the baby replies, "I'm not a baby, I'm a tumor." And it works beautifully, it's real, it doesn't look or feel like an effect. The amazing thing is there's hundreds of creatures, none the same, and all believeable.

This movie also has one of the best drunken buddy scenes ever put on film. It features several incredible battle scenes, a lot of humor including a hysterical fight with locker doors, quite a bit of love and tenderness, incredible clockwork machinery, an excellent soundtrack, some really impressive kung fu weapon twilring, and social commentary.

I've loved several movies this Summer but this puts them all to shame. It's that good. Next week The Dark Knight really has its work cut out to outdo this awesome spectacle.