Multi-Movie Review

Last night, as I wrote all over the darn place, I wrote a paper. This kept me up until near 4 am, while I woke up aound 7 to turn in aforementioned paper. Unfortunately, I’d actually been starting to get on a sleep schedue for once in my life, for which the typical exhaustion wall showed up around 11:30 (invented a neat concoction, though. See, I had chai spice tea with caffeine, but no sugar for it, and happened to be far too lazy to actually go buy some coffee or something, so I devised to make the tea and sweeten it with apple juice. It actually ain’t half bad). So I’m tired, and will thereby be doing short reviews for some movies I’ve seen recently. Suck it up; I’ll try for something better Thursday (really really).

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan

It must have been been absolutely amazing, because I grew to be dead tired in the middle of it, and still found it awesome (and that’s with the ending being completely ruined for me by Seth damn Green). I mean, I couldn’t even finish The Hunt for Red October under only the former condition. Khan always has been and always will be truly epic.

Star Trek III: The Search for Spock

**Spoilers for those who haven’t seen Wrath of Khan** So it has a bad rep ’cause of its number. I can see where the primary complaint probably lies–the plot was very, very linear. However, it was either this, having Spock return in the middle of an unrelated plot, or just basically doing a movie without Spock (HA!). While the result here was a certain lack of depth and character development, the second option would have made it seem like Spock sacrificing himself for everyone was no big deal, while the latter is just absolutely ridiculous. Besides, the kids featured are a far cry better than Zachary damn Quinto and his Eyebrows from Hell.

The Blue Lagoon

So, this movie is mostly famous because it has a fairly large amount nudity and most people are too immature to pay attention to anything else. So people under 18 run around naked; you can’t honestly say you’d wear much else on a deserted island with only one other person, with whom you’d grown up (hah, up with whom you’d grown). The story was, actually, very beautiful and true to life, and I really enjoyed watching it. (And yes, they’re cousins, but read Wuthering Heights and you’ll realize that marriage between cousins was actually very common in the 19th century).

Revenge of the Nerds

Just in case you started thinking I was actually in some way an average girl, Hulu the Great also gave me this. After the mild shock I got from the realization that this, not unlike Robocop, is actually rated R (I’m getting used to it), the most striking thing about the movie is the accuracy of the characters. Now, I don’t know many people, but the ones I do know are nerds, and I’ve at least met each and every one (well, I do somewhat lack in the gay and black guy department, but that’s made up for by my mom having had a friend who is both those, plus fat–for the extra dimension of things that don’t go together). In fact, Devil’s Advocate Guy is nearly identical to Booger, save for, you know, the whole nose thing. Seriously, it’s creepy. Good movie–not excellent as expected (though perhaps my 90′s upbringing prevented me from getting the significance), but funny and enjoyable.

The Departed

It’s very strange, but I think I really like Leonardo DiCaprio as an actor. Perhaps I’ve only gotten ahold of the slection of the best movies he’s been in (that is, exactly, Titanic, Catch Me If You Can, Gangs of New York, What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, Romeo + Juliet, and the one herein reviewed. Scheiß, man, why do most of them have long names?), but I haven’t seen one I didn’t enjoy (saw plenty with historical inaccuracies, but they were the good kind). So, the movie itself is an orchestra of blood, violence, drama, and blood; it’s beautiful. Granted, there are a couple gaping plot holes, but it’s well made up for when, literally, everyone’s brains get blown out, and I suspect that some are left unresolved due to simple time constraints, since the whole thing is two and a half bloody hours long as is (pun totally intended). It’s a good watch, if nothing else. And yes, I know this guy is in it, but you get used to it. Sort of.

Probably something better on Thursday. Later, dudes.

Movie Review: Star Trek: The Motion Picture

In case you missed it, I got all the Star Trek movies! So last night, I watched the first one. I went through The Wrath of Khan with my mom on Saturday, but decided to review this first for two reasons: 1) it’s just kind of neat to go through them in order, and 2) I was mad-crazy sleepy during Khan, and thereby don’t fully trust my judgement (huh. apparently, that’s only the British spelling…) of it.

Overall: Not as terrible as you’d expect from hearing about the curse (oddly enough, it seems to be more of an oral legend, since there’s no actual page really detailing it that much… though what is there to be detailed?), but still not very good.

Now, the plot was plenty good, as was character development. There were moments of some terrible acting, but it was by no means excessive (Nash out!). The main failing of the film is–and people have probably detailed this plenty in the 30 years since it’s been made–lack of action. Towards the beginning, something like three or four minutes was spent on just shots of the Enterprise and Kirk and Scotty looking at it as the shuttle or whatnot took them there. Now, we all love that ship, and perhaps it’s just my young attention span, but it’s just way too much stagnation.

Essentially the only other complaint of mine is actually somewhat related to that, and it is that a whole lot of the point of the movie was to play with special effects (*achem*), but hey, at least it had plot (looking at you, modern cinema).

In the end, it’s not something I’ll want to watch a number of times, but a nice experience once. I’ll not tear it apart; I’m sure it’s gotten plenty of that from the hardcore fans over the years. It wasn’t great, but neither was it terrible. Just sort of, okay.

Starship Troopers Gave Me the Idea

So, I’ve been playing with writing scripts lately, and thought I might share a parody infomercial. I know, the format’s probably all wacky, but as long as you can tell who says and does what when, there’s no problem, right? Sure. On that note, just to be clear, the announcer’s voice goes over the actions described above his lines (kind of hard to describe something someone else does simultaneous to the speaker). Also, sorry I’ve been in such a heavily movie mood lately, but it’s what my mind’s been on, and been particularly helpful in guiding me away from thinking about the looming apocalypses. Anyways, buy some Infi-ammo! (Durn! I forgot to throw in bad actor customer testimonies! Oh well.)

Woman shoots revolver, and looks distressed as she dumps out the casings and reloads.

ANNOUNCER

Are you tired of always having to reload in the middle of shooting?

Bank robber shoots at police with an AK, and gets riddled full of bullets when he tries to change magazines

ANOUNCER

Do you keep running out of ammo during gunfights?

Continue showing various distressed shooters. Man having trouble inserting a magazine, woman pinching her thumb trying to load a magazine, etc.

ANNOUNCER

Hollywood has long-since had access to an amazing product that’s now become available to the public:

Show picture of Infi-ammo—basically, looks like regular magazines.

ANNOUNCER

It’s Infi-ammo!

Show various shots of the product and people happily shooting.

ANNOUNCER

Infi-ammo’s revolutionary new bullet-fill technology allows for easier handling of any firearm. Just load like any other magazine, and shoot for as long as you want!

Show hip with a bunch of filled mag. pouches, person counting bullets in a magazine and blatantly mouthing, “five!”, a bunch of people having ridiculous amounts of trouble inserting a magazine.

ANNOUNCER

Magazines take up so much space, and only hold a small number of bullets. And even with a magwell, it’s such a hassle to have to change them out all the time. Infi-ammo is the size of one regular magazine, and never has to be changed out!

Show person using and shooting revolver “Infi-ammo”.

ANNOUNCER

Infi-ammo is also available for revolvers. Just insert like you would with any speed-loader, and shoot! It’s that easy!

Continue with happy shooters and shots of the product.

ANNOUNCER
Infi-ammo can be yours for only $199.95! That’s right—all the ammo you’ll ever need for less than 200 dollars! What are you waiting for? Call now, at 1-800-555-AMMO. That’s 1-800-555-2666.
(quickly)
Not available in metric, or calibers .22 through .50.
Call now!

*sigh* alright, the wonkiness of the last bit is from the blog formatting and my trying to keep “Call now!” in the center (at least I managed that), and then trying to fix the spacing on the last two lines. Major fail, yes, I’ll never try to fix anything ever again. Otherwise, save for a bit of an SNL-for-people-who-actually-know-stuff-about-guns-feel, I’m relatively happy. However, critique is welcome and most assuredly encouraged.

Movie Review: Watchmen

I am not a man of my word, but only because I am, in fact, a woman. Extra points for knowing what that’s a vague reference to (though no one ever seems to try for those points… and I don’t really know what purpose they might serve. I guess it’s kind of like Who’s Line is it Anyway?. Only no one cares).

Overall impression: Thank the Lord for Zack Snyder, though this was most assuredly not the ideal movie to see the week I’d vowed to stop thinking of catastrophe all the time. Loved it, though.

Of course, it didn’t follow the graphic novel exactly, but I suppose that’s to be expected. If it had, the whole thing would’ve been at least another hour, thereby causing some friends’ curfews to be shattered beyond repair and my poor Mr. Pibb-filled bladder to explode (could’ve maybe taken some time off the sex scene, though. I mean, geez! IIRC, it wasn’t even that bad in the novel).

I was kind of disappointed by the lack of time spent on Rorschach’s origin story and all that, plus the fact that he got his face back during the jailbreak instead of after with the separate costume with blood on it from the tale with the dogs (I will not spoil movies, I will not spoil movies, I will not spoil movies). Frankly, I kind of liked his more human face and was kind of looking forward to seeing him walk out of the jail all cool-like like in the comic. Could’ve taken some time out of the sex scene for that, Zack. I mean, I guess I’m not necessarily the target audience, and I tend to be squeamish about that particular sort of thing, but still.

Eh, that’s just a minor complaint; it didn’t by any means ruin the movie. The whole thing was great and generally stayed very close to the source material. It was a little less ambiguous about the ending, which kind of bugged me (the guy behind it all, for example, didn’t question his actions even the slightest like in the comic), but I’m just nit-picking a little. Effects were pretty great, story was great (and very much like the source material), acting was pretty awesome–I actually liked the rest of the characters, which I didn’t so much in the comic–and the soundtrack was awesome once I got over the shock of hearing 99 Luftballons in such a crazy-serious movie (I know it’s a serious song, but you wouldn’t know it by the beat). I highly recommend it, though it should be required that one read the comic as well. The only way to get the entire story the way it was meant to be told is through the comic, but the medium of video allows for a better sense of the action and characters, which–and maybe it’s just my novice comic-reading skills–I didn’t really get from the novel.

Now go watch the Watchmen. It’s worth it.

The Best Movie You’ve Never Seen

Last night, I went out with a friend of mine to see a movie, Street Fighter with a group of people (boy, did I need something like that). Now, that was a pretty God-awful POS, overacted to the extreme, and I don’t recommend it to anyone. I headed home, though, finally realizing why girls can’t drive due to the spiffy boots I bought and felt the need to wear lest they be a waste of money (it’s because driving in heels SUCKS!). When I got there, my mom was in the middle of a film on TV. It had been on something like over a year or so ago, but it was on before and she hadn’t managed to finish it then due to needing some crazy thing called sleep, but I’d stuck around for the whole thing, and loved it. So I finished it again last night, and it was just as good as I’d remembered.

So, what is this awesome movie? Frailty. Basically, a guy begins to believe that God tells him about certain people who are demons, and begins killing them with his two sons, one of which, of course, is very conflicted about the whole ordeal. I daren’t say too much, but it all just sort of explodes from there and stabs you in the face with ingenius shrapnel.

Some may have something to say about a possible anti-Christian feel to this, but only the most insanely sensitive would do so. It’s got a sort of Carrie thing going on, where the parent is insane anyways and simply uses religion to enable and justify their actions.

I must say, though, that there are something like three amazing twists at the end that just pull the whole thing together and just make it all that much better–and, of course, I can’t tell you any of them or why they make it so good, but just trust me on this. I just highly recommend it to anyone and everyone and thought y’all should know so as to avoid not having seen it in the future.

Today in WoW…

"He has overpowered all attempts at his capture." - Wanted Poster

Watch out, just one more week! (Dammit, not letting me f—ing embed)

So, apparently, that was the guy Johnny Depp stole a career from. In the long run, at least in terms of characters, I say he’s much better off (and that guy is about to become super-rich next Friday).

A Full Name? Whatwhatwhat!?

Just ’cause I want something actually written by me up here, I’ll explain the sudden addition of a middle initial and last name.  First: for new readers (heh, right) or people who simply forgot, I adopted the name Hazel from the character in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. Yes, I know she’s in The Rolling Stones and a number of other Heinlein books, but I haven’t been able to obtain them yet (save for The Cat Who Walks Through Walls). Stop pointing it out, please.

Dude, the strikeout is an actual button here. Awesome, I had to go into HTML at the old place.

Second: Funny little story behind Henley. A couple years ago, I was trying to decide upon a pen name. Since my life has consisted almost entirely of political discussion for the past few years, I was anticipating a career in revolutionary writings, and thus decided upon Patricia Henley for a short time. Well, that got scrapped, but I later found out that my mother had been using the same last name for a counseling board on which she was an adviser. I just got attached to it there; I mean, my mom and I just happened to pick the same last name for our respective aliases? Come on, I had to keep it.

Third: Best for last, the mysterious “B.” It’s taken from the old name of a car (that is, one particular car. Not a model) that’s–oddly enough–now under my real name. Hint.