Friday the 3th

Okay... this lot I will admit I was starting to get onside with Jason killing... but as this is the third movie in the 1980s... the 3D!!!!!

At some point you just have to start blaming people for coming anywhere near the place where there was mass murder and the murderer is still around. This time, a group of kids head up to a holiday cabin for some relaxing, and unfortunately Jason is around and back to his slasher ways. Some of these people are reasonable, but most are slowly moving in the 'annoying prat' range and yeah, come on Jason! This also sees the start of Jason in a hockey mask, previously used by another kid in a prank. Pro-tip: stay away from barns.

Now we are already devolving into generic slasher territory. After a five minute repeat of the previous movie's end (similar to what the last movie did), we get a new shot of Jason getting up and taking the machete used on him for himself. Machete... hockey mask... we got us an icon!

Now, they do try to have some kind of character growth, but that is quickly thrown away when the people get near Jason. It's like the movie wants to be a slasher, but isn't quite ready to commit. And there's a hint at the end that the mother might still be around?

Still, next time, we have the Final Chapter... yep, that'll be it.

[END]

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Lois & Clark 1

I think I saw about three episodes of this when it first screened, so there's a lot to catch up with. It's the New Adventures of Superman!

We start with Clark turning up in Metropolis and eventually landing a gig at the Daily Planet. There are a few accidents and such happening, and so a mysterious savior also appears at the same time. (It's all right, all he needs to do it take off his glasses... the pilot makes a moment of it, but doesn't really sell it right.) And from then on the action is on... and by action, for the first season, we get a number of science used for evil devices and the odd bad guy plotting to do bad things. There's no sign of any other super powered thing, so it feels very banal.

There are a few episodes that go into the history of Superman, with the arrival of Kryptonite, and an egg thing that spends an episode giving backstory (with David Warner as Jor-El). But that's about it.

Dean Cain is fine as the man of steel, Teri Hatcher is a little too whiny in about... every appearance. Tracey Scoggins is a great Cat Grant (given the movies never refer to her, does this mean the new Supergirl series is set in this universe?). Lane Smith is great as Perry White, and we have Michael Landes as Jimmy Olsen who comes across as... wet. Then there is John Shea as Lex Luthor, oh he seems to be having fun... and smoking a lot of cigars.

One moment I like about the pilot is that at the end Superman turns up in Lex's place and basically says "You're the bad guy, but I can't touch you currently, but I do have my eye on you." No long term mystery is played out, straight to being the bad guy. And their dynamic means I don't believe the end moment of the first season at all.

Three more seasons, let's hope some more super action takes place.

[END]

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The Failnix Incident

Hey, let's set up an elaborate conspiracy involving aliens around an incident that happened in the past... what is this, Doctor Who?

Back in 1997 there were lights over Phoenix... so let's take footage from that, and set up a story which follows four men who went missing. At last the airforce are explaining what's going on, and yes, it's basically aliens. Which are now running around on the world and are about to hit major urban centres so everyone will know about them.

This features shaky cam... a lot of shaky cam, because it's also found footage. There are also backlit people delivering secrets and reaction shots of family members who just want to know what happened. The disappearance of one of them is apparently the longest ever missing person case... which is straight up rubbish, but they make the point often, so I'm also going to refer to it. Amidst all this is repeated footage of the lights themselves (which are just a diversionary tactic from the real alien craft, donchano?). Just because the 1997 footage is bad quality doesn't mean we need the rest of it to be also horrendous (but of course it is, and it does add a touch of realism... and nausea while watching it).

They tried, but didn't succeed.

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Love a lantula

Take Volcano, and mix it with Arachnoquake, what do you get? Did you say a movie no-one wants to see? Well, here it is!

Steve Gutenberg is a has been actor that was famous in the past, but now ends up in terrible movies trying to reclaim that past… his character is, I mean, his character. As is standard for disaster flicks, we have our “hero” trying to get to his family (son in this case), who is mixed up in stupid activities of his own. This movie gets very metatextual, but that doesn’t make it good. We get cameo from Sharknado dude, we get people dressed up in various costumes dying in laughingly ironic ways, and lots of running and jumping from explosions. Now, the movie does try to take itself seriously, but that includes saying the word “Lavalantula” with a straight face, which I just cannot take.

Check out the actors in this. Aside from Steve Guttenberg, we got Michael Winslow, Marion Ramsey, Carlos Bernard, Danny Woodburn, and a slew of others I’m sure I recognised. Even the spiders look like they were brought out of New Reckoning.

This wants to be meta and funny as well as serious… and you get what you’d expect considering this is SyFy.

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Gerhard Richter - Painting

Gerhard Richter is a famous painter... although I can't say I've heard of him before. Still, this is about him, painting. Yep. This is Gerhard Richter - Painting.

Aside from some insert clips of earlier, we are basically with Richter in 2009 as he prepares various exhibitions. In particular, we see him in the painting process, the full process where we see him picking paint and painting it on, and using squeegees. Although he isn't entirely comfortable with being filmed while painting, which I can understand when the camera is about a foot from you. We also go to different exhibitions and see his art in place.

As I said, he is a famous painter, so I'm sure there are people really wanting to see the genius at work. However, for me... his art isn't really something that speaks to me, so I was just watching someone put paint on a canvas, which is, to me, about as exciting as it sounds.

I do like documentaries, but can't say I'm going to come back to this one.

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Doctor Who 9.07

Yep, it is a sequel. I didn't know that it was going to be that explicit a sequel, but there you go.

We start with the return of everyone's loved character, Osgood. Wait... is she loved? Or is she just a natural fan attractor because of how her character was set up to worship the Doctor? Either way, she's around... and I vaguely remember her. Then we get a running joke with the Doctor calling Clara which pays off as... actually, it doesn't pay off, and we can only hope they never mention it again. But fortunately there are Zygons! Who now have amazing powers of telepathy or something? And can contradict previous establish canonical history because it makes the story better? Um... sure. (Except that it doesn't.)

Tell me... are the kids enjoying this? I know I seem to keep going on about who are these episodes for, but in this case, are the kids at the edges of their seats wondering who will turn out to be a Zygon next? Perhaps their parents will turn on them, capture and duplicate them! That's great television, that is!

And then the big twist of Clara already is a Zygon named Bonnie (that's what it sounded like to me). Ohh... gasp? Of shock? Admittedly it is about the only interesting thing to be done with her character this season. You know what would have actually entertained me? If some of the Zygons turned up looking like the past Doctors! That would have been great! Never gonna happen of course, and that would bring about comments about field lasers.

Despite the broad world spanning nature of this, it still feels budget and that they filmed in at a farm next door (which they probably did). I can't bring myself to care about these characters, and so their being under threat doesn't bother me. And since we never saw the missile hit the plane, we already know how that's going to go long before we see the trailer for next week.

Next week: What's in the box? What's in the box?

[END]

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The Hungry Games

I had this book read to me, and it’s definitely better than one (cynical and jaded) might think. Note: This post will talk about all three books in one go, so spoilers beware.

Katniss is just a young girl that is incapable of recognising love. So her worst nightmare comes true when she is put into an awkward position where that is the central premise around her survival. Oh, and she’s also in an arena in which other young kids are trying to kill you, but that’s secondary.

After surviving that… how unfortunate for the love angle to keep going on, and… yep, she’s back in another arena. Wow, that’s unlikely. Fortunately, after that, she’s able to be with her true love… which, it turns out, is herself, but at least she’s not in another arena. Oh wait. And then it goes all dark as people die. There’s no happy ending here.

Okay, I’ll give that these are interesting characters, but a basic set up of this story is that Katniss is not in touch with her emotions, and angsts about every death she’s even semi-responsible for. Hey, she’s a young adult!

Still, the journey was more interesting than the arrival, and, I’m gonna say it, I think Snow won in the end.

A good set of books.

[END]

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