- The forbidden love between Dwarf and Elf. Oh, yeah the female Elf.
- Radagast the Brown and his Magical Bunny Sled. I don’t care if every child on the planet cries for a month there is no excuse for this Jar Jar-esque turd to be on the screen.
- Galadrial, Saruman, Elrond, and an epic battle against Sauron and the Nazgul.
Um, if these three fought against Sauron like a mere 40 years before the events in the LOTR why is everyone so shocked in the Fellowship when he rears his ugly head? Image from the movie t shirt category. - Legolas. Orlando Bloom is all over this film like a fly on fly food and has gone from a minor cameo scene in the last film to pretty much the protagonist. I guess the producers still lie awake at night in terror that we the idiot audience will forget that this film comes from the same people as the LOTR (actually based on quality and story that is a reasonably fair assumption to make) and need to be reminded every three minutes of its origin. In a rare example of artistic integrity Viggo Mortenson refused to do Aragorn for this film based on the fact that having any character in this film from the last series besides Gandalf, Bilbo, and Elrond was stupid but I guess Orlando was sick the day they did story continuity. As an aside they managed to shoehorn in a reference to Aragorn at the end with all the grace and subtlety of an M1 Abrams tank trying to fit into a compact parking space.
The Gambler Part 4
The plot is a rich douchbag with a gambling problem (Mark Wahlberg) owes a ton of money to a Korean gangster. He borrows more money from a loan shark (Michael Kenneth Williams. 
He was in the Road and Robocop. Image courtesy of the movie t shirt collection) in order to lose even more. A waitress at the casino is actually the guys student (Brie Larson) in his literature class and according to Professor Bennett a genius of writing. Most of Bennetts classes are him bitching to his students about what untalented losers they all are and how writing at less then a genius level is a waste of time. Everyone within a 300 mile radius tries to bail Bennett out by giving or lending him money but he keeps on gambling it away. He gets another one of his students (Anthony Kelly) to throw a basketball game to pay off his loan shark and make a ton of money. In the end he still owes a ton to the Korean gangster (Alvin Ing) and Johnathon Goodman and bets it all on black on a roulette table like an ass.
1.5 of 5 Bleh
So what did you think Dave? Honestly pass. If you are a huge Marky Mark fan you might enjoy seeing him in sunglasses but otherwise this is not a lot to hook you in. Rated R for language, some bizarre artistic drowning flashbacks a la Terrance Malick, and the tension of watching a character you hate throw his life away one card at a time. It is a character movie without any character. Maybe wait for NetFlix and see it on a Sunday morning while hung over. 1.5 of 5 phasers.
the Infamous Dave Inman
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Star Trek Retrospective: Episode 4 the Naked Time
Another great episode if only for George Takei running around with a fencing foil. Of course that cool character element would later be ruined like finding out your favorite childhood stuffed toy was given to you by a serial killer when JJ Abrams opted to insert it into his movie Star Trek the…Star Trek? What the hell do we call that movie anyway? You know, the 2009 Star Wars movie they made but misspelled Wars.
Anyway, this episode was great as it illustrated a real danger of space exploration and that is alien microbes. This would later be explored further in Miri although honestly they seemed content to ignore it on a regular basis. 
Even Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were kept in quarantine after their moon landing. In this one Spock and Tormolen had cool biohazard suits (image courtesy of the Iron Man t shirt category. It was the closest thing I could find).
I also enjoyed this show as it introduced a cool semi recurring character Ensign Riley. He would later play a pivotal role in the Conscious of the King and was kind of a neat character. I wish they had done more with him. Of course any red shirt besides Scotty who survived more than one episode was the red shirt equivalent of Methuselah so kudos to him and his survival instinct. He even survived poisoning. Too bad he couldn’t survive the writers. However he was particularly cool as the crazy Irishman in this episode.
the Infamous Dave Inman
Star Trek Retrospective: Episode 5 the Enemy Within
This was never what I would consider a good episode in that the base concept that a transporter accident could split a human in to two distinct people based on an arbitrary psychology split is ridiculous. Good and evil Kirk? How about the Kirk who believes professional wrestling is real and the Kirk who thinks it’s fake? As far as a personality trait can influence the physics of a transporter it’s equally valid.
Being the curious monkey that I am this accident makes me wonder a lot about transporters (image courtesy of the Curious George t shirts). Trek canon states that the transportee is dematerialized in the transporter and rematerialized at the other end but with this yellow powder glitch it kind of implies that the transportee is actually horrible killed on one end and a new clone is created on the other. How else could them make an exact replica unless it’s building one from scratch using the recorded pattern? Isn’t that exactly how replicators work? If so doesn’t this mean that every time you get in a transporter you are killed and a new one of you is created? Also in the Day of the Dove they talked about the Klingon transport patterns being trapped in the transporter computer so theoretically if you hooked your transporter to your replicator couldn’t you replicate yourself thousands of times? Seems like an easy way to take over the Enterprise or even any planet. Just mass clone yourself armed to the teeth and march to victory.
the Infamous Dave Inman
Star Trek Retrospective: Episode 6 Mudd’s Women
Star Trek was great about a lot of things including race relations, nuclear weapons, war, and the future of technology but the one area where it seriously lagged was in gender equality. The show dripped misogamy like a Sparklets jug shot with a shotgun drips water and no episode was as bad as Mudd’s Women (although Turnabout Intruder was a close second. Ironically both episodes written by Gene Roddenberry. Take from that what you will). Essentially the story is of women willingly selling themselves into chattel and using drugs to enhance their appeal in only the most superficial and sexist ways possible in order to attract men who’s only quality is being rich.
I suppose an argument could be made that the minors on Rigel XII saw past the girls hideous appearance once it became obvious what good cooks and house cleaners they were (another step forward for women’s liberation!) but I noticed Kirk never managed to see past the ugly to the inner beauty. This episode preceded the City on the Edge of Forever so even the argument that he was pining away for Edith Keeler holds no merit.
I am in almost all ways proud to be a Star Trek TOS fan but when faced with the women being treated more or less like short skirted door mats in every episode I do have to give props to the Next Generation. They were infinitely better in this one area. I’m pretty sure it was never Roddenberry’s intention to be so sexist but that the behavior was so ingrained that he just assumed it was normal. 
It makes me wonder what things do we consider just normal today that will look lame and ridiculous in 2054. (Whenever I talk about sexism in Star Trek I feel compelled to pull an image from one of the Wonder Woman t shirts to balance it out. Not sure if that works but I do what I can)
the Infamous Dave Inman
Star Trek Retrospective: Episode 7 What Are Little Girls Made Of
This is another one that flies under my personal radar but when I see it I love it. If I ever had the guts to shave my head I would totally do a Ruk costume for a convention. I definitely have the size. However it will always be Sherry Jackson in the x-costume that I remember most fondly. It pretty much introduced me to the concept of side boob.
That being said the story was great and I loved seeing Lurch in a different role. Ted Cassidy was great as a character actor and actually you would benefit from reading his Wikipedia article. He was a very interesting person and had a cool life. He was also very intelligent. 
I think the coolest part of Ruk was seeing bald Lurch as he could look when angry. A pissed off 6’9″ Frankenstein-ish monster is not something you want to deal with. (classic image courtesy of the Horror Movie t-shirts)
This was kind of a ground breaking episode as it set the tone for every machine intelligence episode that followed. The whole question of the Doctor’s humanity from Voyager can be seen as started here. The morality of the concept was better explored in the Ultimate Computer but the actual sentience was first looked at here. Once again Star Trek breaks new technological ground that we are dealing with today.
the Infamous Dave Inman
The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies Review Part 1
“Best of the Series.”
Best of the series is a term that is bandied around a lot these days usually as an excuse for a film that is slightly less repugnant than the rest of the Hollywood effluent that typically flows into our sight holes. 
Revenge of the Sith was the best of the Star Wars prequel series but as a stand alone movie it is dried excrement on the end of a stick which is also made of dried excrement. The last Twilight movie was like receiving a full lobotomy with a power sander but was modestly more watchable than the rest. Only in the golden world of comparison can some films be considered decent if only like the first meal of actual food regardless of quality after a month of eating rotten horse meat, tree bark, and gravel. (R2 image courtesy of the Star Wars t-shirts category)
This was not always the case. The Empire Strikes Back is generally considered the best of the Star Wars series but is a great movie by itself and the other two are either good or watchable (Ewoks aside). The Godfather 2 is one of the great films of the 20th century but Godfather 1 was awesome as well. Somewhere there is a parallel universe wherein creating a film franchise does not mean watering the individual films down to the level of transparency. The best of a series should be a wondrous film experience even for someone who did not see the other films, did not read the books, or is not a ravaging fan boy.
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The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies Review Part 2
So the Hobbit. Like I said, the best of the series. Better in action, story, plot cohesion, and character development than any of the other two. However the question I had to ask myself was “If I had never read the Hobbit nor seen the first two film would this film stand up” and the answer is an emphatic no. It is not a good film. The other question I asked myself was “If I had seen the first two films but had never read the book would I have enjoyed this film?” That is a more interesting question. I would at least be familiar with the events leading up and relatively familiar with Biblo, Thorin, and Gandalf but honestly there is no reason to give two farts about the other 12 dwarves, the elf love interest, Legolas, Bard the Bowman, or the rest. In my opinion there is nothing here drawing you in to this series. 
There is more pull in any three back to back episodes of Game of Thrones (image courtesy of the Game of Thrones t shirt category).
But, as a fan who as read the book there was some really cool stuff here. The scene where Dain Ironfoot shows up to confront the elves and men of Laketown was out of the book and really cool. The battles were kind of cool (although really visually confusion. For some reason they opted to put all the Goblins and trolls into full body steel armor in order to fight Dwarves in…full body steel armor. I blame Michael Bay for the grey on grey fight aesthetic). This film stuck to the original story more than the others and as such ended up being…the best of the series. I wonder if there are any lessons to take home from that?
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The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies Review Part 3
However for the hardcore fans of the book there was also a lot of really dumb stuff to annoy the crap out of you. Weirdest of all was the appearance of Shai Hulud for no apparent reason. Azog the Destroyer (another character featured heavily in the book-not) somehow managed to import some sandworms from Dune and have them do…nothing? They were digging tunnels or something but then before they could do anything fell back into the Well of Bad Ideas that Peter Jackson seems to drink from. In fact all the most annoying parts of the last two movies (from a book perspective) are here in force including:
Some new Bad Ideas included flying bats (who joined the sandworms in making like two appearances and then shuffling off the screen like a kid in a 3rd grade play who just wet himself on stage), goblins who are bigger and badder than the baddest Urik-Hai you’ve ever seen, cata-trolls, and a long lost elf treasure.
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The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies Review Part 4
This movie suffers from the “We have to make this one biggerer and badderer than the last ones!” disease and has the net result of being kind of stupiderer. For every cool battle scene there were five that were plain dumb (mostly involving Legolas). Suspension of disbelief is one thing but we all know how gravity works so the more you warp that the less real the scenes look and feel. You can’t stick two broken ends of a bow into a log and use it to launch a ballistae bolt. You can’t run up falling rocks or launch yourself through ice 10 feet in the air. The coolest things about the LOTR battle scenes is they were epic without being ridiculous. This film lost all that. It also had a lot of the action smothered under the PG-13 rating like Jack Nicholson in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s next but that is to be expected. Heaven forbid we make this film less accessible to the kiddywinks or require parents to make an active determination what entertainment is appropriate for their kids.
They need to be bigger hit the visuals as well. The first series had 12 foot trolls and you know what would be cooler than that? 30 foot trolls! Oliphants? Pshaw. We have giant Graboids (nerd cred if you know where that came from. No Googling). We definitely need to have another city under siege just like Gondor so look out Dale! Remember that desperate battle between Éowyn and the Witch King? Now we have an even more desperate battle between Thorin and Azog. 
You can almost see the storyboard artists desperately trying to think of ways to insert things from the LOTR but more epic like a kid trying to improve a classic music t shirt with a Bedazzler.
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The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies Review Part 5
I’m not going to bother with the story recap. This film more closely follows the book than any of the Hobbits and honestly if you didn’t read the book I don’t know why you are even reading my blog. I’m sure there is a Jason Stratham movie coming out soon that you will enjoy.
2.5 of 5 Meh
So good or bad? Honestly as much as I rail against this whole series I have to say you should probably watch it. If you saw the first two then for sure. It got a 60% on Rotten Tomatoes and I’d say that’s probably fair. Do yourself a favor and don’t watch any of the LOTR movies prior or you will end up hating it. The difference is I have two copies of each of the LOTR movies on DvD (regular and deluxe extended version) and am good to watch any of them about once a year but will never go out of my way to see this film or either of its predecessors again. It just won’t stick like the other ones. Take the kids so they can learn valuable lessons about solving conflict through brutal violence and then flush it down with every minute of reality TV you have watched in your life. Oh, yeah spare yourself the extra $3 for 3D. I saw it in 3D and barely noticed. I think normal screen resolution has gotten to the point of illustrating what a bogus scam 3D really is. 2.5 of 5 phasers.
Thanks for reading. Sorry I haven’t posted anything in 8 days but the Holiday rush has been killing me. Lots of people needing t-shirts apparently. 
I guess it’s a decent gift although I sold a large amount of Jaws t shirts. Not sure how that fits into the holiday spirit. Things have slowed so I will get back on the horse for sure. Talk to you soon.
the Infamous Dave Inman
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