Day 144 - 5/24/09 - Movie #143
BEFORE: I'm glad I saw "Star Trek", and not just because it fit in with my sci-fi chain. Even though I'm more of a Star Wars fan, I can't really show up at the San Diego Comic-Con in July without being current, now can I? I know it's getting close, because I had the Comic-Con dream last night - the one where I'm setting up my booth and I can't find my boxes of merchandise. I suppose it's a variation on the dream where it's the day of the big biology midterm, and you suddenly realize you haven't studied, or you're not wearing pants... Anyway, I'm close to wrapping up "Alien Invasion" week.
THE PLOT: The Martians unchain a direct assault to our planet, with hundreds of ships. All the major cities are destroyed one after one; even the atomic bomb can't stop them. But, if the humans can't beat them, who can?
AFTER: NOT the Tom Cruise version, this is the 1953 original - I did watch the 2005 remake a year or so ago, and that was a pretty decent update, with spectacular FX. See, this proves my point about using futuristic technology in a sci-fi movie. A story about a Martian invasion was cutting-edge at one point, but now that we've sent probes to Mars, this story seems positively antiquated. And the special effects extremely outdated as well...
There's a strange mix of science and religion depicted here (commonly known as "the 1950's", I suppose...) When a group of scientists estimates that the Martians will take over Earth in 6 days, the female lead notes, "Why, that's the same amount of time it took to create the Earth!" I wondered why none of the scientists slapped her, or at least rolled their eyes in dismay. When the aliens succumb to some Earth bacteria (bacillus deus ex machinus, I believe...) God gets a big shout-out for that as well, for having the foresight to create a tiny organism that was deadly to aliens but not humans.
RATING: 4 out of 10 a-bombs
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Star Trek
Day 143 - 5/23/09 - Movie #142
BEFORE: Yes, THAT Star Trek - the one in theaters now... We took advantage of the 3-day weekend to hit the movie theater. A holiday is a great time in NYC - everyone who can afford to leave town does, so if there's an activity you want to do, or a hot restaurant you've been dying to try, it's sometimes a perfect opportunity.
THE PLOT: A chronicle of the early days of James T. Kirk and his fellow USS Enterprise crew members.
AFTER: What a thrill-ride, from start to finish - the action lasted long after my jumbo tub of popcorn was gone. I'll try not to talk about the movie without spoiling the plot, but that might not be possible - so if you haven't seen this yet, stop reading now - I won't hold it against you.
The casting and characterizations are spot-on. In line with the original series, and in some cases, the characters have even been improved. Now even Sulu and Chekhov have important tasks beyond the usual "driving" of the ship by pushing random buttons. Kirk as a brash hothead, who is 3 steps ahead of the enemy at every point? Well, that's EXACTLY who a young Kirk should be. And Scotty is, as usual, one of the most entertaining characters.
As a fan of time-travel movies, I have to point out that this one is very different from what has gone before in the sci-fi genre. Up until now, time travelers have either been extremely careful to NOT change the past (Star Trek IV), or very cavalier because they believe that anything they do automatically becomes part of history, so screw it (Star Trek: First Contact). There's a point in this film where, if you're familiar with Trek chronology, you realize that the timeline has been dramatically altered - I knew it even before the main characters did.
So, knowing that the timeline has been altered, they proceed knowing that history is once again a blank slate, anything can happen, and nothing is for certain, so now they have to struggle once again to bring about the best future that they can. Very smart, and very shrewd. An alternate timeline now means that the "Star Trek" story can continue forward without a crowd of geeks complaining about contradictions with the storylines that have taken place before.
Fans of comic books are familiar with the "reboot" concept - every few years they'll scrap a couple decades of Batman or Superman stories and start over with "definitive" origin stories, so that new readers aren't burdened by a whole lot of continuity issues, and new writers will have free reign to take the storyline in whatever direction they want.
Strange that I'm seeing this film almost 10 years to the day after the 1st Star Wars prequel came out. "Phantom Menace" really kick-started this whole prequel trend that went through Batman, James Bond and Hannibal Lecter before hitting the Trek universe...
My only quibbles are:
1) The use of Romulans. Romulans are like the Riddler from Batman comics, in that no writer knows quite what to do with him, but after you've told a Joker story, a Catwoman story and a Penguin story, you kind of have to go back to the Riddler. Once you've made the ultimate Klingon movie and the best Borg movie, there aren't too many other places to go - but nobody really gets the Romulans, or has a good handle on what they're all about.
The villain in this movie could have come from any planet - we learned exactly nothing about Romulan culture that we didn't know before. So what was the point in making him Romulan?
2) The use of black holes as a story device. If they're so destructive, how come they also seem to allow people to travel across time and space? So they're destructive part of the time? Just because current science doesn't fully understand them, that doesn't mean that they're going to function the way that a writer needs them to.
I will say, though, that Stephen Hawking recently revised his long-standing beliefs about black holes - which on paper seem to contradict the laws of physics, since they seem to destroy matter and absorb energy. Physics has been telling us for years that energy can't be destroyed - so what happens when an object gets sucked into a black hole? Short answer - no one knows.
Hawking's longer answer now says that an object in a black hole gets destroyed - and also doesn't get destroyed at the same time. Or rather, alternate timelines are created, one in which the object gets destroyed, and one in which it doesn't. This revision to the theory sent shockwaves through the physics community, and scientists started to wonder if Hawking's finally gone off his nut.
My point is, it's very premature to use black holes as a story device when one of the smartest men on the planet, who's devoted most of his life to understanding the universe, doesn't seem to have a handle on exactly how they work. Someone could come along in a few years with a radically different definition of how the universe functions, and then your little sci-fi vision of the future is gonna seem very quaint.
RATING: 9 out of 10 transporter beams
BEFORE: Yes, THAT Star Trek - the one in theaters now... We took advantage of the 3-day weekend to hit the movie theater. A holiday is a great time in NYC - everyone who can afford to leave town does, so if there's an activity you want to do, or a hot restaurant you've been dying to try, it's sometimes a perfect opportunity.
THE PLOT: A chronicle of the early days of James T. Kirk and his fellow USS Enterprise crew members.
AFTER: What a thrill-ride, from start to finish - the action lasted long after my jumbo tub of popcorn was gone. I'll try not to talk about the movie without spoiling the plot, but that might not be possible - so if you haven't seen this yet, stop reading now - I won't hold it against you.
The casting and characterizations are spot-on. In line with the original series, and in some cases, the characters have even been improved. Now even Sulu and Chekhov have important tasks beyond the usual "driving" of the ship by pushing random buttons. Kirk as a brash hothead, who is 3 steps ahead of the enemy at every point? Well, that's EXACTLY who a young Kirk should be. And Scotty is, as usual, one of the most entertaining characters.
As a fan of time-travel movies, I have to point out that this one is very different from what has gone before in the sci-fi genre. Up until now, time travelers have either been extremely careful to NOT change the past (Star Trek IV), or very cavalier because they believe that anything they do automatically becomes part of history, so screw it (Star Trek: First Contact). There's a point in this film where, if you're familiar with Trek chronology, you realize that the timeline has been dramatically altered - I knew it even before the main characters did.
So, knowing that the timeline has been altered, they proceed knowing that history is once again a blank slate, anything can happen, and nothing is for certain, so now they have to struggle once again to bring about the best future that they can. Very smart, and very shrewd. An alternate timeline now means that the "Star Trek" story can continue forward without a crowd of geeks complaining about contradictions with the storylines that have taken place before.
Fans of comic books are familiar with the "reboot" concept - every few years they'll scrap a couple decades of Batman or Superman stories and start over with "definitive" origin stories, so that new readers aren't burdened by a whole lot of continuity issues, and new writers will have free reign to take the storyline in whatever direction they want.
Strange that I'm seeing this film almost 10 years to the day after the 1st Star Wars prequel came out. "Phantom Menace" really kick-started this whole prequel trend that went through Batman, James Bond and Hannibal Lecter before hitting the Trek universe...
My only quibbles are:
1) The use of Romulans. Romulans are like the Riddler from Batman comics, in that no writer knows quite what to do with him, but after you've told a Joker story, a Catwoman story and a Penguin story, you kind of have to go back to the Riddler. Once you've made the ultimate Klingon movie and the best Borg movie, there aren't too many other places to go - but nobody really gets the Romulans, or has a good handle on what they're all about.
The villain in this movie could have come from any planet - we learned exactly nothing about Romulan culture that we didn't know before. So what was the point in making him Romulan?
2) The use of black holes as a story device. If they're so destructive, how come they also seem to allow people to travel across time and space? So they're destructive part of the time? Just because current science doesn't fully understand them, that doesn't mean that they're going to function the way that a writer needs them to.
I will say, though, that Stephen Hawking recently revised his long-standing beliefs about black holes - which on paper seem to contradict the laws of physics, since they seem to destroy matter and absorb energy. Physics has been telling us for years that energy can't be destroyed - so what happens when an object gets sucked into a black hole? Short answer - no one knows.
Hawking's longer answer now says that an object in a black hole gets destroyed - and also doesn't get destroyed at the same time. Or rather, alternate timelines are created, one in which the object gets destroyed, and one in which it doesn't. This revision to the theory sent shockwaves through the physics community, and scientists started to wonder if Hawking's finally gone off his nut.
My point is, it's very premature to use black holes as a story device when one of the smartest men on the planet, who's devoted most of his life to understanding the universe, doesn't seem to have a handle on exactly how they work. Someone could come along in a few years with a radically different definition of how the universe functions, and then your little sci-fi vision of the future is gonna seem very quaint.
RATING: 9 out of 10 transporter beams
Thursday, May 21, 2009
The Man Who Fell to Earth
Day 142 - 5/22/09 - Movie #141
BEFORE: This time David Bowie plays an alien, and if that's not perfect casting, I don't know what is. Bowie re-invented himself so many times in the 70's that I think legally he actually was a space alien at one point...
THE PLOT: A humanoid alien comes to Earth to get water for his dying planet. He starts a high technology company to get the billions of dollars he needs to build a return spacecraft, and meets Mary-Lou, a girl who falls in love with him.
AFTER: God, there go two hours of my life that I'll never get back...this movie is long and very hard to follow. Bowie's alien character somehow proves he owns some very valuable patents, and parlays this into a vast corporate tech conglomerate - but nothing really gets explained very well. It's like the director had never made a film before, or else it was edited by spider-monkeys. Essentially, this is an experimental film - but is it "arty" or just poorly made?
Bowie's alien believes in free love, interplanetary sex, fooling around with pistols in bed (kinky!) and he needs our water (I think?). Problem is, his plans to return to his wife and home planet never seem to materialize - why should they, when he can spend his days having freaky sex with messed-up Earth girls?
I just didn't get this at all - pointless. The 70's were a weird decade.
RATING: 1 out of 10 gunshots
BEFORE: This time David Bowie plays an alien, and if that's not perfect casting, I don't know what is. Bowie re-invented himself so many times in the 70's that I think legally he actually was a space alien at one point...
THE PLOT: A humanoid alien comes to Earth to get water for his dying planet. He starts a high technology company to get the billions of dollars he needs to build a return spacecraft, and meets Mary-Lou, a girl who falls in love with him.
AFTER: God, there go two hours of my life that I'll never get back...this movie is long and very hard to follow. Bowie's alien character somehow proves he owns some very valuable patents, and parlays this into a vast corporate tech conglomerate - but nothing really gets explained very well. It's like the director had never made a film before, or else it was edited by spider-monkeys. Essentially, this is an experimental film - but is it "arty" or just poorly made?
Bowie's alien believes in free love, interplanetary sex, fooling around with pistols in bed (kinky!) and he needs our water (I think?). Problem is, his plans to return to his wife and home planet never seem to materialize - why should they, when he can spend his days having freaky sex with messed-up Earth girls?
I just didn't get this at all - pointless. The 70's were a weird decade.
RATING: 1 out of 10 gunshots
Coneheads
Day 141 - 5/21/09 - Movie #140
BEFORE: The warm weather's here, so today I changed to my summer routine, and instead of my Wednesday post-comic-shop Cafe Mocha, I enjoyed my Wed. post-comic-shop shake. Good to see my usual Mr. Softee back on his regular corner. I tried going to the Shake Shack for a while, and the shakes are clearly superior quality, but last summer they shrunk the size of the cups and kept the prices the same. Not exactly how you keep my business...
Alien Invasion week continues, this time with a comic twist. This movie was made in 1993, and is filled with former (and current, at the time) SNL cast members - it makes sense to use them as a great comic ensemble.
THE PLOT: An alien couple with cone-shaped heads from the planet "Remulak" is mistakingly ditched on earth. While waiting to be recalled to their mother planet, they start a family and have a little daughter.
AFTER: With all the great SNL all-stars in this movie - 16, by my count, including Dan Akyroyd, Jane Curtin, David Spade, Chris Farley, and Michael McKean, plus Jason Alexander, Sinbad, Drew Carey, Dave Thomas, and Ellen Degeneres in bit parts, it's a shame that the movie's not, you know, all that funny. Is it just because the characters are 30 years old, and completely played out? Someone clearly put a lot of thought into Conehead culture and history, but some more jokes wouldn't have hurt as well. The action livens up a bit late in the film when the Coneheads visit their home planet, but it's too little, too late.
Once again, I learn that aliens are whizzes at fixing household appliances. Good to know.
RATING: 4 out of 10 INS agents
BEFORE: The warm weather's here, so today I changed to my summer routine, and instead of my Wednesday post-comic-shop Cafe Mocha, I enjoyed my Wed. post-comic-shop shake. Good to see my usual Mr. Softee back on his regular corner. I tried going to the Shake Shack for a while, and the shakes are clearly superior quality, but last summer they shrunk the size of the cups and kept the prices the same. Not exactly how you keep my business...
Alien Invasion week continues, this time with a comic twist. This movie was made in 1993, and is filled with former (and current, at the time) SNL cast members - it makes sense to use them as a great comic ensemble.
THE PLOT: An alien couple with cone-shaped heads from the planet "Remulak" is mistakingly ditched on earth. While waiting to be recalled to their mother planet, they start a family and have a little daughter.
AFTER: With all the great SNL all-stars in this movie - 16, by my count, including Dan Akyroyd, Jane Curtin, David Spade, Chris Farley, and Michael McKean, plus Jason Alexander, Sinbad, Drew Carey, Dave Thomas, and Ellen Degeneres in bit parts, it's a shame that the movie's not, you know, all that funny. Is it just because the characters are 30 years old, and completely played out? Someone clearly put a lot of thought into Conehead culture and history, but some more jokes wouldn't have hurt as well. The action livens up a bit late in the film when the Coneheads visit their home planet, but it's too little, too late.
Once again, I learn that aliens are whizzes at fixing household appliances. Good to know.
RATING: 4 out of 10 INS agents
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
*batteries not included
Day 140 - 5/20/09 - Movie #139
BEFORE: This is another movie that I've seen bits and pieces of over the years, but probably never watched all the way through. I forget - was this the last film with Hume Cronyn, or Jessica Tandy? Nope, not according to IMDB. Maybe it was the last time they were in a film together? Nope, that would be "Cocoon: The Return"...damn, what was it?
THE PLOT: Apartment block tenants seek the aid of alien mechanical life-forms to save their building from demolition.
AFTER: This film contains a number of gross over-simplifications, if you ask me. Landlords and developers are evil, their rent-controlled tenants are all noble souls or struggling artists, and old people go senile in a very endearing way. Oh, and aliens are tiny helpful mechanical beings who fix things, and are not fixated on world domination in any way. And the streets are paved with gold and the Easter Bunny planted a money tree in the backyard....
As every New Yorker knows, a developer wouldn't be able to put up a skyscraper in the East Village. The bedrock there isn't solid enough to support it - that's why midtown and lower Manhattan are filled with high-rises, and in-between there are strict rules about the height of buildings. Look at the skyline of Soho and the Village, there's nothing like a skyscraper.
So, I have to call "shenanigans" on the movie's premise. The alien storyline, I'm OK with, but I don't mess with the portrayal of NYC zoning codes.
There's actually a similar situation going on right now in Brooklyn - Bruce Ratner is a developer who bought up a whole bunch of properties in the Atlantic Yards section, in hopes of building high-rises and a basketball arena, to lure the NJ Nets to move to Brooklyn. Through a combination of eminent domain foreclosures and cold, hard cash, he got most of the tenants who lived in properties that were "in the way" to move, but at last report there were 1 or 2 tenants still holding out.
I admire their fortitude - I'm all for sticking it to the man, but when someone comes up to the house with a briefcase full of cash, take the deal! Or maybe hold out for the 2nd or 3rd offer, but then take it - they probably could have bought houses for the money they were offered to leave their apartments. By not cashing in, these holdouts now have to live in an almost-deserted part of Brooklyn, which can't be safe. And now the developer has been hit hard by the recession, so it's too late for them to cash in, and the whole project's timetable is shot. Again, when someone offers you six figures to move, take the damn deal.
For fans of animation, there's a brief appearance by Wendy Schaal as the girlfriend of the artist in the building - she moves out early in the film, and only has one scene, about 3 minutes long - but if you listen to her voice, you'll recognize that she plays the mother on "American Dad".
RATING: 6 out of 10 bulldozers
BEFORE: This is another movie that I've seen bits and pieces of over the years, but probably never watched all the way through. I forget - was this the last film with Hume Cronyn, or Jessica Tandy? Nope, not according to IMDB. Maybe it was the last time they were in a film together? Nope, that would be "Cocoon: The Return"...damn, what was it?
THE PLOT: Apartment block tenants seek the aid of alien mechanical life-forms to save their building from demolition.
AFTER: This film contains a number of gross over-simplifications, if you ask me. Landlords and developers are evil, their rent-controlled tenants are all noble souls or struggling artists, and old people go senile in a very endearing way. Oh, and aliens are tiny helpful mechanical beings who fix things, and are not fixated on world domination in any way. And the streets are paved with gold and the Easter Bunny planted a money tree in the backyard....
As every New Yorker knows, a developer wouldn't be able to put up a skyscraper in the East Village. The bedrock there isn't solid enough to support it - that's why midtown and lower Manhattan are filled with high-rises, and in-between there are strict rules about the height of buildings. Look at the skyline of Soho and the Village, there's nothing like a skyscraper.
So, I have to call "shenanigans" on the movie's premise. The alien storyline, I'm OK with, but I don't mess with the portrayal of NYC zoning codes.
There's actually a similar situation going on right now in Brooklyn - Bruce Ratner is a developer who bought up a whole bunch of properties in the Atlantic Yards section, in hopes of building high-rises and a basketball arena, to lure the NJ Nets to move to Brooklyn. Through a combination of eminent domain foreclosures and cold, hard cash, he got most of the tenants who lived in properties that were "in the way" to move, but at last report there were 1 or 2 tenants still holding out.
I admire their fortitude - I'm all for sticking it to the man, but when someone comes up to the house with a briefcase full of cash, take the deal! Or maybe hold out for the 2nd or 3rd offer, but then take it - they probably could have bought houses for the money they were offered to leave their apartments. By not cashing in, these holdouts now have to live in an almost-deserted part of Brooklyn, which can't be safe. And now the developer has been hit hard by the recession, so it's too late for them to cash in, and the whole project's timetable is shot. Again, when someone offers you six figures to move, take the damn deal.
For fans of animation, there's a brief appearance by Wendy Schaal as the girlfriend of the artist in the building - she moves out early in the film, and only has one scene, about 3 minutes long - but if you listen to her voice, you'll recognize that she plays the mother on "American Dad".
RATING: 6 out of 10 bulldozers
The Brother From Another Planet
Day 139 - 5/19/09 - Movie #138
BEFORE: This movie got a lot of indie buzz when it came out - and I think it was the first major role for Joe Morton. For fun, check out his IMDB page - before this movie, all he had on his resume were a couple tiny soap opera roles and episodes of "Sanford and Son" and "What's Happening". After this movie, his career hit the ground running and he hasn't stopped working since...
THE PLOT: A mute alien is chased by outer-space bounty hunters through the streets of Harlem in this thought-provoking cult classic.
AFTER: This film seems (to me) what "E.T." would have been like if it had been directed by Spike Lee instead of Steven Spielberg. (I know, John Sayles directed it, not Spike Lee - but still...) What sells this movie is Morton's blank expression - when he roams New York, it's like we're all seeing it for the first time, through his eyes. It's probably very tough for an actor to play a mute character - fortunately for the alien (and us) everyone he encounters is very talkative. The Brother also has the good fortune to make it up to Harlem, where he blends in better, and he's able to land a job fixing broken arcade games and boomboxes. There are messages here about racial politics, drug abuse, immigration - but the movie is extremely slow-paced, and the special-effects budget was about $1.50. It's a long wait for a payoff confrontation with some alien bounty hunters (?) One of the "Men in Black" is played by the director, John Sayles, and the other is a young (well, younger) David Strathairn. Also watch for a young Fisher Stevens playing a guy on the subway doing a card trick - for me, that was the highlight of the whole film.
RATING: 4 out of 10 broken radios
BEFORE: This movie got a lot of indie buzz when it came out - and I think it was the first major role for Joe Morton. For fun, check out his IMDB page - before this movie, all he had on his resume were a couple tiny soap opera roles and episodes of "Sanford and Son" and "What's Happening". After this movie, his career hit the ground running and he hasn't stopped working since...
THE PLOT: A mute alien is chased by outer-space bounty hunters through the streets of Harlem in this thought-provoking cult classic.
AFTER: This film seems (to me) what "E.T." would have been like if it had been directed by Spike Lee instead of Steven Spielberg. (I know, John Sayles directed it, not Spike Lee - but still...) What sells this movie is Morton's blank expression - when he roams New York, it's like we're all seeing it for the first time, through his eyes. It's probably very tough for an actor to play a mute character - fortunately for the alien (and us) everyone he encounters is very talkative. The Brother also has the good fortune to make it up to Harlem, where he blends in better, and he's able to land a job fixing broken arcade games and boomboxes. There are messages here about racial politics, drug abuse, immigration - but the movie is extremely slow-paced, and the special-effects budget was about $1.50. It's a long wait for a payoff confrontation with some alien bounty hunters (?) One of the "Men in Black" is played by the director, John Sayles, and the other is a young (well, younger) David Strathairn. Also watch for a young Fisher Stevens playing a guy on the subway doing a card trick - for me, that was the highlight of the whole film.
RATING: 4 out of 10 broken radios
Monday, May 18, 2009
Alien Nation
Day 138 - 5/18/09 - Movie #137
BEFORE: I remember there was a TV series based on this film, but I've never seen the original movie. And who doesn't love a good pun in a movie title? The concept is pure gold - America's immigration policy is tested by aliens - not Mexicans, but the outer-space type.
THE PLOT: Earth has its first contact with aliens, known as Newcomers, who slowly begin to be integrated into human society after years of quarantine, but are victims of a new type of discrimination.
AFTER: It's an interesting twist on a "buddy cop" film - but instead of using good cop/bad cop techniques, it's good cop/alien cop. And when James Caan is the "good" cop, look out... Just like in "Enemy Mine", the human and alien have to put their differences aside and work together - in this case, to shut down the distribution of an alien drug.
It takes acting skills to work under a lot of alien make-up, and Mandy Patinkin and Terence Stamp seemed to be up to the task - and it's always good to see my buddy, character actor Peter Jason, in a supporting role. I can see why they made a TV series out of this - this seems like a relatively short story for a feature film, but it established a framework in which more storylines could be set.
It reminds me of this fake commercial that appeared on the radio stations in the "Grand Theft Auto" video-game, for a fake TV show with a human and alien cop teaming up - the sergeant yelled, "You may vaporize criminals on Alpha Centauri, but in my precinct we do things by the book!" Funny stuff...I guess this is the movie they were parodying.
RATING: 7 out of 10 milk cartons
BEFORE: I remember there was a TV series based on this film, but I've never seen the original movie. And who doesn't love a good pun in a movie title? The concept is pure gold - America's immigration policy is tested by aliens - not Mexicans, but the outer-space type.
THE PLOT: Earth has its first contact with aliens, known as Newcomers, who slowly begin to be integrated into human society after years of quarantine, but are victims of a new type of discrimination.
AFTER: It's an interesting twist on a "buddy cop" film - but instead of using good cop/bad cop techniques, it's good cop/alien cop. And when James Caan is the "good" cop, look out... Just like in "Enemy Mine", the human and alien have to put their differences aside and work together - in this case, to shut down the distribution of an alien drug.
It takes acting skills to work under a lot of alien make-up, and Mandy Patinkin and Terence Stamp seemed to be up to the task - and it's always good to see my buddy, character actor Peter Jason, in a supporting role. I can see why they made a TV series out of this - this seems like a relatively short story for a feature film, but it established a framework in which more storylines could be set.
It reminds me of this fake commercial that appeared on the radio stations in the "Grand Theft Auto" video-game, for a fake TV show with a human and alien cop teaming up - the sergeant yelled, "You may vaporize criminals on Alpha Centauri, but in my precinct we do things by the book!" Funny stuff...I guess this is the movie they were parodying.
RATING: 7 out of 10 milk cartons
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Enemy Mine
Day 137 - 5/17/09 - Movie #136
BEFORE: Gonna stay up late and sneak in an extra movie - since tonight's the big 3-hour "Survivor" finale, and I can't miss that...
THE PLOT: A soldier from Earth crashlands on an alien world after sustaining battle damage. Eventually he encounters another survivor, but from the enemy species he was fighting; they band together to survive on this hostile world.
AFTER: Not a terrible movie - maybe a bit predictable, up to a point. I suppose I'm supposed to learn a big lesson about war, and enemies really being the same in the end, so this does come off as a little preachy. But I suppose the first rule of warfare is to respect your enemy, so that when the human and alien get stranded together, that respect leads to survival camaraderie, which leads to friendship.
The FX are a little cheezy, however. Definitely better than "Meteor" but still below average. The alien make-up was handled better, though.
RATING: 5 out of 10 campfires
BEFORE: Gonna stay up late and sneak in an extra movie - since tonight's the big 3-hour "Survivor" finale, and I can't miss that...
THE PLOT: A soldier from Earth crashlands on an alien world after sustaining battle damage. Eventually he encounters another survivor, but from the enemy species he was fighting; they band together to survive on this hostile world.
AFTER: Not a terrible movie - maybe a bit predictable, up to a point. I suppose I'm supposed to learn a big lesson about war, and enemies really being the same in the end, so this does come off as a little preachy. But I suppose the first rule of warfare is to respect your enemy, so that when the human and alien get stranded together, that respect leads to survival camaraderie, which leads to friendship.
The FX are a little cheezy, however. Definitely better than "Meteor" but still below average. The alien make-up was handled better, though.
RATING: 5 out of 10 campfires
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