ParaNorman in 3D Review
I Maed a Mov1e W1th Z0mb1e5 1n It
Extra nerd props to anyone who knows where I got that sub title from. Anyway, I was supposed to see Hit and Run last night but the timing sucked and I didn’t want to be out until midnight. I have important Warhammer related stuff to do. This one was playing at a more fitting time and as I loved Coraline I thought this one would make for a nice viewing.
As is my rule for kids movies I will not be doing my usual stars/black holes but rather taking it in more on an impression basis. My impression is not bad, but not great. Certainly not as good as Coraline, but certainly better than Brave. However, if this were a bell curve ParaNorman would sit on the Brave side of the hump rather than the Coraline side.
Don’t get me wrong. Visually this movie is stunning, with a seemless blend of amazing stop motion and CGI. The art is great, and you tend to forget its animated after a while. It’s like the Lorax with a soul. It also has the benefit of direction that many live action films could seriously be jealous of. Of course, the amount of effort put into a single stop motion scene as compared to shooting some dopey actors means you had better have your direction dialed unless you want your production people to mutiny.
Where, then, does it not work for me (I was about to type “fall apart” but in truth it doesn’t really fall apart so much as just stumble a few times)? Basically in two portions: the tone and the overall writing.
By tone I mean I can’t figure out if this is for kids or adults. Most good kids movies are for kids but put in enough adult stuff to keep dads from wanting to sneak to the bar down the street. In truth this film is too gruesome and horror-ish to be for kids, yet at the same time the story, jokes, and characters too childish for adults. The jokes that are in there are painfully obvious and predicable, and delivered with the subtlety of a baseball bat. Instead of writing in brilliant items for each group (Toy Story, Incredibles, etc) it lands squarely in the middle zone, or as I like to put it Mediocre Valley.
The story also impacts in that zone, with a pretty formulaic, prosaic message that has been spat out by any number of Disney movies and after school specials. This film is so deeply mired in the Stereotype Swamp (at the south end of the Mediocre Valley) that is needs a flat bottomed boat just to go shopping for groceries. There’s Norman, the creepy kid who talks to dead people and is bullied and ostracized by other kids at school at school; his fat friend who is a big weenie and goes on chip eating binges; his suburban disbelieving parents; his older social butterfly sister; their super nerdy girl friend; the fat kids older brother who is a dumb jock; the fat cop on a scooter; a big bully; and a cast of local yokels who make the guys from Deliverance look like the supporting characters from Sex and the City. It’s like the writers had a kids/horror stereotype checklist and scored in the 90% zone.
The story is of Norman, a weird kid who can see and talk to dead people. That very important plot element is beaten to death in the first ten minutes as he wanders the town talking to assorted ghosts but is then dropped entirely unless it is needed to advance the plot. He has what looks like a typical childhood; abused by his peers, bullied by a bigger kid, has a fat loser for a sidekick, and has all his major issues more or less ignored by his parents (if you think that last sentence might give you an insight into my own childhood I won’t say you are wrong). His crazy uncle wants him to take over keeping the local witch from rising from her grave and bringing forth the seven people responsible for her death as zombies (that Zombie Apocalypse image actually comes from our Cheap T Shirt category, incidentally).
Naturally things go haywire, starting with the death of the uncle and the undead rising up. The seven zombies do stuff that makes sense in a zombie movie but later when you realize what their real motivation is you kind of end up scratching your head. There is a long van chase scene with the head zombie trying to kill them all that will leave you confused if you think about it.
So it’s up to Norman to save the day with a long speech about the evilness of bullying and how it is better to forgive and forget or something. At the time the visuals were at their all time most amazing and I kind of lost track of the dialog (which was nothing to write home about anyway).
Anyway, it’s not a bad movie. If you are into animation and visuals you will really enjoy it. I don’t think it’s a great movie for pre teen kids, and honestly I don’t think it’s a great film for adults who expect to laugh with their kids. I will say the 3D was pretty good and enhanced the film a lot, so try to see it on a big screen in 3D. If you are going just because you hope for another Coraline I hope you enjoy popcorn. Date movie? This should work OK but I am not going to give it 2 thumbs up on it. Bathroom break? That’s easy. At one point the Mystery Gang (oh yeah, did I mention that if you squint and decide the bully is Scooby you basically have an episode of Scooby Doo?) go into the city hall and start doing an exciting search through old records to find the witch’s grave. Feel free to duck out right there if you are truly riveted by the story.
Thanks for reading. I’ll try to see something else soon, although tonight is movie night at my friend Brian’s house and he has announced he will be showing something called Attack of the Two Headed Shark. Sounds amazing. Follow me on Twitter @nerdkungfu. Post a comment here if you loved this movie and think I am a soulless insensitive jerk for not shouting its praises from the rooftops (you can also comment if you think my reviews are good and this one is spot on. Also feel free to post if you have met me and think I am amazing. I can’t get enough of that). If you have off topic questions or comments feel free to email me at [email protected]. Talk to you soon.
Amazing Dave
Maybe the Alternative Factor was a lot worse than I remember it being.
Back in November when I did my 10 Worst Star Trek TOS Episode list I included my list of bad ones. One of the episodes that slipped my grasp was the Alternative Factor. One reader commented and called me out on it. At the time I said I had a liking for Lazarus and anti-Lazarus fighting for eternity between universes. However, I have been rewatching the TOS episodes and last night got up to the Alternative Factor and have had to reconsider my position on this one.
Basically this episode is the first to have Season 3 sized plot holes but was barely into Season 1. The science was about as dumb as possible. If anti-Lazarus was made of antimatter wouldn’t he be annihilated as soon as he came into contact with matter from our world? The matter humans are comprised of changes every minute. If anti-Lazarus ate or drank something what happened when he went home? Wouldn’t his stomach contacts destroy the universe? Is it only the exact molecules that destroy each other? How does that make sense?
So Lazarus is a crazed madman who has already expressed a desire for critical components of the Enterprise’s warp drive. Why didn’t Kirk just throw him in the brig, or at least put a guard on him? Instead a complete stranger has free run of the ship, and gets to hang out in the rec room listening to crew members discuss dilithium crystals. Had Lazarus been under observation the crew might have noticed how he kept phasing in and out of reality every time the universe went on it’s freaky binge. Given that knowledge I think Kirk would have not been remiss dropping him into the nearest black hole.
Why, exactly, did anti-Lazarus have to fight Lazarus in the corridor between universes forever? You can’t tell me it’s because of the balance of atoms or something like that. One of them had a bandage that the other did not, so there is no way the atom count was accurate. Why couldn’t Kirk have just executed Lazarus (the crazy one) or rendered him unconscious, tied him up, and tossed him into the little ship? Anti-Lazarus could have just hung out on the other side and blown up his own ship, then went home to market his own line of facial hair products.
Speaking of just knocking Lazarus out, at one point Kirk and Lazarus struggle as Kirk tries to pitch Lazarus into the gateway. That’s all fine and well, but Mr. Spock and two red shirts just stand there fully armed watching. What if Lazarus had been secretly trained in martial arts and tossed Kirk in the door again, or just gotten lucky and gouged out one of Kirks eyes? Spock could have nerve pinched him out, cuffed him, and tossed him into the corridor. Also Kirk takes his sweet ass time nuking the ship from orbit. At any second Lazarus or anti-Lazarus (or both) could have come rolling out of the gate and destroyed the universe.
I don’t know. Is it worse than the Enemy Within, my number 10 worst episode? I guess not. The science is not as horrible, and at least they tried to address some interesting ideas beyond the duality of man. However, Kirk did not get to demonstrate his range of acting ability as he did in the Enemy, so from a cinematographic point of view maybe.
One thing is for sure. This episode would have to murder a bus full of orphans and nuns to be considered worse than Spock’s Brain, so as bad as it or any of the other ones are at least it has that going for it. (Spock’s Brain image courtesy of the Star Trek T-Shirt category)
Today is cheap movie night, so I will try to see Hit and Run tonight. It’s the new pretty boy Bradley Cooper movie, but apparently it was done semi-independently so I am curious to see what comes of it. Look for the review tomorrow. Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu. If you have any thoughts or comments on this post feel free to make them here, and if you have any off topic questions or suggestions feel free to email me at [email protected]. Thanks for reading, and have a great day!
Dave
Who would win? Hal verses the Planet Express Ship?
So I’m sure all the nerds out there are familiar with the HAL 9000, the murderous computer from 2001: A Space Odyssey. However, I am curious as to what would happen if Hal came monitor to monitor to the computer controlling the Planet Express Ship from Futurama.
It’s not really that obvious when you think about it. Hal is programmed to kill using any means available to him, and has pods and so on to help. However, Hell hath no fury like that of a women scorned, and when Bender dumped her Planet Express Ship went kind of berserk. Also, Planet Express Ship is armed with some kind of laser cannon and does not seem to be as constrained by the laws of physics as Hal is.
I guess I will have to give this one to PES, although now that I think about it pitting the best technology of 11 years ago against a computer from the year 3000 might be a little unfair. The PES image I grabbed from one of Dave’s many sci fi t shirts. I think he actually wears this one himself.
Jason
Premium Rush Review
Worth watching, but not worth rushing out to see.
Before I get into this review I want to make one thing absolutely clear: I, like any sane, rational human who lives in an urban are infested by hipsters, have a burning hatred of fixies that goes far beyond the pale. I actually like bikes and bicyclists and have one of my own (collecting dust with a flat, but at least I own one). I have always enjoyed watching BMX and trial bikes. However, I have found fixie riders to be to hipsters what hipster are to non D-bag people. (Portlandia image courtesy of the TV Show T Shirt category)
I mention this because the main character in this story is a fixie bike messenger, and I want to distance myself from his inclinations before I admit I actually like his character a lot (in spite of his very wrong mechanical affinity). I enjoyed this movie quite a bit. The action, while less inclined to follow the more traditional action hero formula, was exciting. The bike stunts and scenes were extremely well done and well shot. The main character Wiley (Joseph Gordon-Levitt-50/50, Inception, the Dark Knight Rises) was interesting, fun, and well portrayed. The supporting girls were reasonably good and both pretty hot (especially Jamie Chung (the Hangover Part 2, Sucker Punch, Grown Ups) who gets my vote as the hottest Asian alive right now). Most importantly the story made sense and didn’t have any massive plot holes or lack of motivation to bug the hell out of me. Everyone had a reason for doing what they were doing and at no point did it really stretch those motivation beyond what seemed reasonable.
All that being said, the film definitely had its issues. The story, while believable, was delivered in the most clunky and awkward manner possible. Flashbacks done well can be cool, but flashbacks done badly (especially done with a clock showing where you are Vantage Point style) feels like you cut your movie into 10 minute chunks and shot them out of a shotgun at a wall. Most of the characters besides Wiley were tertiary and insubstantial, and the villain (Michael Shannon-Vanilla Sky, Pearl Harbor, Bad Boys II) shifted gears radically from comedy relief to terrifying rage monster back and forth so often you find yourself wondering if his role was originally supposed to be two characters. The dialog was not great either, and I’m pretty sure they lifted a big part of the ending from the book Snow Crash.
The story. Honestly watch any “everyone wants the message kill the messenger” movie like the Transporter and you will have it. This one does not get props for originality. Wiley is a bike messenger in the Big Apple who rides a fixie and refuses to have a brake on his bike. He graduated from Columbia Law but has yet to take the bar mainly due to his love of riding. His last run of the day gets lifted by his biggest competitor (Wolé Parks-Taking Chance, As the World Turns, Undressed) who is also after his girlfriend (Dania Ramirez-X Men First Class, American Reunion, 25th Hour). He gets a last minute delivery from someone who turns out to be the roommate of his girlfriend Tita (Jamie Chung). Of course the delivery is very valuable and some Chinese gangsters recruit corrupt NYPD detective Monday (Michael Shannon) to track it down. At that point it is a chase movie. Wiley gets does the smart thing and goes to the police first and then tries to bail on the delivery only to be convinced of the morality of making it happen. Bikes get raced. Messengers get hit by cars (no spoiler there. You see it in the first 2 minutes).
The stars. Story made convoluted sense and didn’t bug me. Two stars. Joseph Gordon-Levitt was quite good. One star. The bike chase and stunt scenes were very well done and hand me totally engaged. Two stars. Jamie Chung should be in every movie made ever. One star. Michael Shannon in his comedy avatar was fun and engaging. One star. Overall a fun movie. One star. Total: eight stars.
The black holes. The disjointed story telling really tended to pull the audience out of the theater. One black hole. Most of the supporting characters didn’t add a lot of depth to the film. One black hole. The whole film was fairly derivative, and the ending both borrowed and out of place. One black hole. The Michal Shannon violent sociopath avatar felt really out of character. One black hole. Total: four black holes.
A grand total of four stars. Not bad at all. Worth seeing, and worth seeing in a theater. Date movie? Sure, why not? The action is good without being really gun or fist violence, there is a romance, and some family value stuff. Just know that between Joseph and Wolé you have two hot guys with avid bicyclist bodies on the screen, so expect to suffer a little in comparison. Bathroom break? The convoluted nature of this story deliver means missing the wrong moment can leave you lost when you get back. I would say that when you see an old Asian woman in China with a little boy towards the last 1/3rd of the film you have about 1-2 minutes of dead time to make a run for it. Not a lot happening in that scene you won’t have already figured out from earlier or will understand by the end of it.
Thanks for reading. More movies coming out so I will try to see something tonight or tomorrow. I am watching all the Star Trek episodes at home and once that is done will start up on TNG. Since I have never watched that series in order or in it’s entirety I might start doing short recaps and impressions a few episodes per post. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. Post any comments on this movie or review here, and if you have any off topic questions or suggestions email me at [email protected]. Talk to you soon.
Dave
Clove Owen as the villain from the new Robocop
So I guess they are remaking another Robocop. On the one hand I say why? Robocop was about as perfect a movie as you can get. On the other hand I’m kind of excited to see a new one. It could end up being really good. I’m sure Dave will have his issues with it.
So they are casting Clive Owen as the CEO of Robocop. That could be good. I liked him in Children of Men and the Inside Man. I think his dry style could play out well as a cold, heartless capitalist. I just hope they don’t ruin the movie by making him the big bad guy. In the original the CEO was a bad guy but he was more the overseer pulling the strings. If they make him the guy Robocop has to kill the movie will just feel too complete without the massive corporate menace the first movie played on.
The OCP logo I just grabbed from Dave’s movie t shirt collection. By the way, he just told me he has like a dozen new Robocop t shirts going up in the next couple days. I can’t wait to see them.
Jason
Jim Carrey to star in Kick Ass 2?
For once I don’t have an issue with a casting decision. I am actually a big fan of Jim Carrey and Kick Ass, although Jim has done some lame movies lately like Mr. Poppers Penguins. It looked so bad Dave skipped it entirely, and if you have seen some of the garbage he has reviewed you know that is saying a lot.
I haven’t read the comic series, but apparently Jim is going to be cast as the Colonel, some kind of ex gangster who finds God and becomes a super hero. He is supposed to be the leader of some kind of team called Justice Forever. I also read that Jim is a huge fan of Kick Ass, which I think is super cool.
Of course, Nick Cage being a fan of Ghost Rider did nothing to redeem that train wreck, but I am kind of sick of young actors being cast into classic roles that they don’t give a damn about. It’s OK to be a fan of your own role IMO.
The Dumb and Dumber image I pulled from Dave’s Movie T Shirt collection. He has a lot.
Jason
Expendables 2 Review
Pretty expendable, in my opinion.
I have been looking forward to this movie, to be honest. I enjoyed the first Expendables with the same guilty pleasure that makes me enjoy watching videos of guys getting hit in the testicles with baseballs and the like. Intellectually I don’t feel like I have at all improved my attitude, karma, or life in any way, but the animalistic brain stem part of my personality gains a deep satisfaction by watching literally mindless violence imparted on evil minions by guys who starred in most of the greatest action films of my childhood (Expendables poster image courtesy of the Movie T Shirt category).
This move definitely has the mindless violence covered, and more blood and action than a chainsaw juggler on meth. If that is all you want you will enjoy it immensely. However, the first movie at least tried to qualify as a movie, with an actual story, character development, and pacing. This movie has more or less given up on all that and not even bothered. The “plot” is perfunctory at best and only serves to connect the action sequences with all the cohesion of spit and toe jam. While some minor effort is wasted on trying to develop the characters it fails miserable, sabotaged by poor acting, poor direction, and dialog that seemed to shift back and forth from barely tolerable to wishing I was listening to metal albums backwards in hopes of hearing a Satanic message.
What then about the real draw of this film? What about the collection of all the greatest action heroes from the last 30 years? Schwarzenegger, Stallone, Stratham, Li, Lundgren, Norris, Van Damme, and Willis? With all that concentrated awesome in one film shouldn’t the movie achieve cinema cold fusion and spontaneously generate the greatest action film of all time? Unfortunately, no. It was actually a case of too much of a good thing. You get excited to see Arnold again, then Willis, and by the time you get to Chuck Norris you are kind of over it. Also, with the exception of Bruce Willis and arguably Stratham none of these action guys are well known for their acting ability, an issue that compounds itself with each additional scene. The problem was exacerbated by the newcomers also being pretty mediocre actors. You would think they might have tried hiring some talent for this. The guy I most liked got killed in the first 20 minutes.
Furthermore the “plot devices” they used to crowbar in each of these guys didn’t so much suspend my disbelief as eviscerate it and hang the remains from a gibbet. Each actor had to have some kind of reference to their trademark movie inserted with all the finesse of an anesthesia-less tracheostomy performed with gardening sheers. It’s funny how in the review I did for the recent Total Recall I enjoyed the clever references to the prior movie. Here the term “ham handed” fails to encompass how awkward, out of place, and disconnecting every “I’ll be back” or “lone wolf” joke felt.
The story, for lack of a better term. The Expendables are still running around Third World countries killing hapless locals in pursuit of money. Their old nemesis Church (Bruce Willis) shows up to extort them into doing a simple mission for him (this was actually the only non action scene I really liked to be honest. Bruce Willis can actually act). Barney (Sylvester Stallone) collects the rest of his team and hooks up with a sort of hot Asian girl (Nan Yu) who is tagging along as an expert in the technology of the safe they have to crack open. Apparently they are after some data that is the only know location for five tons of weapons grade plutonium left over from the cold war. It is in a high tech safe on a crashed plane (I guess no one uses email these days) that is somewhere in what I thought was China but later turned out to be some kind of Ukrainian peasant country. I guess they don’t investigate crashed planes.
Anyway, they find the data but are ambushed on the way out by the villain cleverly named Vilain (see what they did there? John Claude Van Damme, by the way). He captures the data from them but instead of either killing the whole team or just sending them on their way he does the stupidest thing possible, killing the one young guy in the most telegraphed death scene since Tom Hanks in Philadelphia. This of course motivates Stallone to lay out the entire rest of the plot in six words: “Track them. Find them. Kill them.”
Honestly that’s pretty much the rest of the movie. Lots of stuff gets blown up. The Expendables are fully capably of one shoting dozens of guys while zip lining down a massive cliff but the bad guys can’t hit the broad side of a barn from inside the barn. Seriously, the inability of trained mercenaries to hit squat from 20 feet firing on full auto got really ridiculous after a while. Most of the movie was like watching someone else play Duke Nukem on easy mode. Jet Li is in the first part of the film but then disappears, possibly off to do an action movie.
Anyway, the stars. The action, while ridiculous enough to make a trained monkey performing brain surgery seem believable, was exactly what the movie makers set out to do and what most of the audience most likely wants. Two stars. While the acting was execrable and the cramming of stars felt like coming in second in a week old hot dog eating contest, it was super cool to see all those past stars on one film. Three stars. I actually really enjoyed Van Damme as the villain and thought he did the best job of all of them. One star. The final fight scene between Barney and Vilain was pretty cool. One star. Overall a fun movie that accomplishes exactly what it set out to do. Two stars. Total: nine stars.
The black holes. The story was God awful. One black hole. They sped through a lot of the plot advancing stuff, leaving what a less generous reviewer might call massive plot holes. One black hole. I honestly feel kind of ripped off at only 102 minutes. Another 12-15 minutes of plot, story, or character development would have been very well received. One black hole. The action was so ridiculous (especially surrounding Chuck Norris) that it actually hurt my brain. Also, what is the point of having Chuck Norris in a film that celebrates his action hero status but then not have him do any martial arts? One black hole. The crow barring in of bad jokes from past movies (or, in the case of Chuck Norris, bad Chuck Norris jokes) was really distracting. One black hole. The acting was almost universally like watching a scenery chewing contest. I don’t know who won but I definitely know who lost, and we were sitting in the theater. One black hole. They somehow found a non-action star love interest who had all the sexual chemistry of watching water evaporate. Her acting actually made most of the other acting seem better in comparison. One black hole. Total: seven black holes.
A grand total of two stars, and to be honest I was reticent in my awarding of black holes. On a different day I might have dumped a lot more. However, you have to bear in mind what this movie set out to do. If all you want in mindless, dumb violence than you have found the equivalent of the Godfather. If you are looking for a story more complicated than a weak episode of Muppet Babies and acting more accomplished than a Punch and Judy skit than perhaps you had best walk on. If you do want to see it watch on a big screen. Date movie? Hell no. This film is an anti-date movie. Bathroom break? While no one scene is really critical for the story, if you want to not miss any of the action I would recommend the camping scene in the abandoned pizza restaurant. Nothing really happens besides bad sort of romance.
Thanks for reading. I will see at least one more movie tomorrow so look for another review soon. Jason is getting back tomorrow so he might be posting soon. If you have comments or questions related to this movie or my review of it feel free to post here. If you have off topic questions or suggestions feel free to email me at [email protected]. Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu. Talk to you soon.
Dave
Everything I needed to know in life I learned by watching red shirts die.
So I spent all last week at the Star Trek Convention in Las Vegas and can highly recommend it as an experience. It was totally fun and cool with a lot of extremely nice fans and amazing costumes. While there I saw several variations on the t-shirt “Everything I Know in Life I Learned from Star Trek.” For the most part they are filled with noble thoughts like “Non Interference is the Prime Directive” and “Seek Out New Life and New Civilizations.” I appreciate the nobility of these sentiments and wish I could have picked them up as a child.
However, the issue here is that these concepts are really more the lessons my parents and teachers really would have hoped I could have learned from the show. They are the the 70’s equivalent of wishing your child would play peacefully with his or her stuffed animals and not use them as a club to bludgeon the child next to them with. This is not how we learn lessons, unfortunately. Not the lessons that are ingrained into our psyche. Those lessons are always learned from pain and stupidity, either experienced or observed.
What do I mean by that? The lessons most strongly remembered are the ones where you feel the need to put your hand in a fire and learn the hard way that that is a stupid thing. If a child has a natural inclination to lick power outlets and does so, assuming he survives that is a lesson he or she will never, ever forget (as an aside, I do recommend parents all baby proof their houses. If you have a more Darwinian approach to parenting (like my own parents did) I’m sure your surviving children will reach adulthood with some important life lessons imparted upon them).
Thus we come to Star Trek. Most of the episodes might have had an esoteric lesson on non interference and peaceful contact with aliens, but they were all pretty hard for me to grasp at age 7. What was easy for me to understand was the 1-6 horrible Red Shirt deaths in each episode (Ensign Riley image courtesy of the Television T Shirt category). What, then, are the hard core lessons ingrained into my very fiber from this show? Here are a few:
1. There is no kill setting strong enough for my phaser.
2. If you are ever told to guard a corridor/door/cell/alien/robot by yourself or with just another hapless minion immediately request backup. Never do anything by yourself.
3. While on guard duty of any kind keep your back against a wall and your eyes on the creature/doorway you are supposed to be guarding.
4. It is never too early on an away mission to “accidentally” sprain your ankle and be ordered to report to sick bay.
5. If you spot something unusual duck behind cover BEFORE yelling out your report (or using your communicator).
6. Never volunteer for anything.
7. Any normal seeming job given to you by your superiors while they stand around watching should be approached with extreme caution.
8. Any creature that can be completely and accurately described with a noun followed by the word “monster” should be considered extremely dangerous (lava monster, tar monster, sucker monster, etc.). Remember lesson number 1.
9. If an alien seems surprisingly confident when faced with your phaser, force field, or otherwise seemingly superior advantage take a few steps backward.
10. In a group never be the first or last man to do anything.
11. If an alien tells you to stand in a certain place a moderate distance from the rest of the group consider just punching him.
12. Try to never leave the ship.
13. If given orders that almost certainly lead to your horrible death remember that mutiny and fragging are always options. I think you will find the captain goes down to a phaser blast a lot faster than a blood sucking gas cloud.
14. If you get back from an away mission and you even have the sniffles immediately see a doctor.
15. If any of your friends are ever possessed by evil murdering aliens it might be necessary to beam them out into open space.
16. It might be worthwhile to keep a backup phaser in your boot.
17. If an alien looks like it can kill you, assume it not only can but seriously wants to. Remember lesson number 1.
18. If you are ever being chased by giant alien creatures remember you don’t really have to outrun them. Just the slowest other red shirt.
19. If you are ever ordered to collect some kind of sample remember that modest scientific advancement is not really worth your life. Find a nice rock wall to lean against and “lose” your collection equipment at the first opportunity.
20. If any creatures, human or otherwise, are acting strange, speaking slowly, and not really answering any of your questions do not let them come within reach of you. Also remember lesson 1.
I think you will find that these lessons, in addition to being more deeply ingrained than the noble ones espoused by the more enlightened Star Trek fans, will also have many more useful short and long term applications in your day to day life. I’m not saying to give up on the high value ones from the intellectual part of the show. Just that these may be much more useful on a personal basis.
Thanks for reading. Follow me on Twiiter @Nerdkungfu. If you have comments or questions on this piece post them here. Off topic questions or suggestions for other articles can be emailed to [email protected]. I’ll watch something tonight and review it tomorrow morning. Talk to you soon.
Dave
The Bourne Legacy Review
By “Legacy” I guess they mean cow milking cash grab.
Sorry it’s been a while since I saw something or wrote a review, but I was in Las Vegas most of the last few days at the amazing Star Trek convention. I had a blast, met some great people, sold a ton of shirts, and was soundly rejected by three women (although to be fair I’m not sure if I was really asking one of them out). 
I also discovered that girls wearing a Starfleet uniform from either TOS or TNG are a real turn on for me. I don’t know if I really want to dig deep in that dark hole in my psyche, but if any ladies are looking to catch my eye there’s the way to do it (Uniform shirt courtesy of the Star Trek T Shirt category).
I made it back in one piece and am now able to indulge in another of my passions: excreting the bitter bile of my soul all over mediocre or lousy movies.
Not that the Bourne Legacy was necessarily bad or even mediocre. I will put it at slightly above mediocre. Like a C+. However, it has latched onto the Bourne teat and suckled that cow down to skin and bones. I kept count and either heard or saw the name Bourne no less than 15 times during the course of the movie. In 135 minutes that’s once every 9 minutes. I guess they felt a cold terror at the thought that the audience wasn’t remembering where this film came from often enough. Speaking of 135 minutes, I was feeling the weight of them by the end of the movie. A lot of scenes seemed to drag on for ever. It would have been nice if they had invested in an ending rather than have the whole movie kind of drift off into space with more or less nothing accomplished other than the finding of a magic MacGuffin.
Bottom line on this film is that it is a decent if fragmented action spy movie. However, it is not of the same caliber as the first three Bourne films. The story is comprised of about 15 spy sub plots and more or less exists as a framework to hang extended action scenes on. I can honestly say this film completely lacks an Act III. There is the intro, a huge development scene, and then all of a sudden it ends with almost nothing resolved beyond the intermediate issues arising from the development. Also, if it has been a while since you saw any of the first three be prepared to get pretty much totally confused as to what the hell is going on. This movie runs in parallel with the other films and if you don’t know what those films were about you will be like Hansel and Gretel without bread crumbs. Furthermore, while it has been a while since I saw those it seems they have taken the whole Treadstone program in a new and stupider direction by making the Treadstone spies the result of some kind of science fiction super drug program rather than just training and psychological conditioning. Again, while I think this would have made for a decent stand alone movie it really didn’t feel like a Bourne movie.
The story. I don’t want to get too deep into it as it will be hard to do without spoilers. Jason Bourne is wreaking havoc across the world. Back at CIA headquarters (or something like CIA) they are all trying to cover their asses by burying the Treadstone program, which involves pretty much killing all the agents and scientists involved. Aaron Cross (Jeremy Renner-the Hurt Locker, The Avengers, Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol) survives his attempted killing, as does scientist Dr. Marta Shearing (Rachel Weisz-the Mummy, the Fountain, Constantine). Aaron is hooked on some enhancing drugs and has to get more so he tracks down Marta. At that point they do the whole “man on the run” spy thing while looking for the thing that will keep Aaron from degenerating. Spy hijinks ensues. The US Intelligence community is painted to look like the most amoral bastards since Hitler. A villain is pullout out of the ether (Louis Ozawa Changchien-Predators, Fair Game, Robot Stories). The Wayback Machine is set for 2006 as parkour rears it’s head once more. The movie comes to an abrupt ending like a car running out of gas.
The stars. I really liked the character of Aaron Cross. Had the movie just been about him I would have like it a lot better. One star. The action was good and fun. One star. The story had a nice complexity and actually required you to pay attention. One star. I always like to see Ed Norton in any film. One star. In fact the entire cast was good and delivered generally good performances. Rachel Weisz was especially good. Two stars. Overall a fun movie. One star. Total: seven stars.
The black holes. The movie ran long, and some of the scenes were repetitive and seemed to go on forever. Pacing should have been tightened a lot. One black hole. The constant reminder of Jason Bourne really bugged after a while, and the movie felt anchored down by the need to keep on reminding you of where it came from. One black hole. The story lacked cohesion and most of the characters didn’t really have a motivation I wanted to buy. One black hole. The ending sucked eggs. One black hole. Total: four black holes.
A grand total of three stars. Not bad, but not great. Worth seeing, but do yourself a favor and watch the first three beforehand. Nothing in this film really requires a large screen so feel free to NetFlix it. Date movie? Nothing about this film will entice your date to take off her clothes, so not really. On the other hand I don’t think it will hurt your chances. Bathroom break? There’s a scene after Aaron first rescues Marta where they are driving in the car that is totally miss worthy. Either that or the big airport/flight scene. Literally nothing interesting happens and it drags on like you are on the 10 hour flight.
Thanks for reading. Now that all the big shows I am doing are done I am going to see more movies and try to write more often. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. If you have comments on this movie or review feel free to post them here. If you have off topic questions or suggestions feel free to email me at [email protected]. Talk to you soon.
Dave
A question from Star Trek TOS Episode 7 Mudd’s Women
This sort of post is more Jason’s thing, but in the last week or so I have been watching the old TOS episodes (getting ready for the big Star Trek convention next week) and a question occurred to me while watching Mudd’s Women.
So Harry Mudd has a drug that makes ugly women incredibly hot (and he claims makes men look amazing too) and his secret plan is to find ugly women and sell them off to rich dilithium crystal miners (not his original plan, but that’s the gist of it). The question is this: why is his secret plan to become the universe’s richest drug smuggler? The drug alone is probably worth more than a planet would cost. This is like spending you life forging perfect counterfeit plates and then selling off the metal shavings you have from the plates.
I guess this is why Harcourt Fenton Mudd is still small time, even when we get to him in I, Mudd. He just seems so savvy and immoral that it is odd that something like this would not occur to him.
I don’t have any Mudd t shirts, but I have this cool Balok image from the Star Trek T Shirt category. Any true fan will know why it’s appropriate for any discussion of a TOS episode (although technically not from season 1).
Dave
