So, pretty much per normal, I've been watching a fair number of horror movies in celebration of it being October and all. Yeah, it's quite the excuse, I know. So, yeah, somewhere in here, maybe, is a movie you might want to see. And my glowing review of it. But you'll have to read the whole thing to find it. Oh, and I didn't really have much of a theme this year. I watched a lot of 80s horror movies I'd been meaning to see, so maybe that counts as a theme. Not a good theme but still a theme.
So, let's begin (this is pretty easy because I have my Netflix history in front of me).
Re-Animator
I'd been meaning to see this one for awhile. This is a classic 80s zombie movie. I really like how 80s zombie movies didn't know about 28 Days Later. It makes things really interesting. It feels to me, as someone whose only conscious memory of a movie when it actually came out in the 80s being The Little Mermaid, that there was a cool experimentation period in zombie movie history during this time. There were all these movies that played around with zombies, all the while purposely trying not to just be like George Romero. Nowadays, everyone just wants to be like George and/or Danny. Which is okay, but it's nice to see a fresh perspective.
It's also nice to see Jeffrey Combs. He really just embodies the crazy mad scientist. I first saw him in The 4400 and thought he was awesome. Now I see why he got that role.
In any case, the reason this movie is awesome is because about half way through the movie, the bad guy gets his head cut off. And not cleanly, mind you. Yeah, that doesn't really stop him. It just means that he has to spend the rest of the movie carrying his severed head around. That's awesome. Now, I don't support rape, nor do I officially support necrophilia. But, when a headless corpse captures a young woman, tears her clothes off and prepares to rape her, while holding his creepy, salivating head the whole time, I can't help but applaud.
So, yeah, this is a pretty cool movie. It has some similar qualities to Return of the Living Dead, in that the people they Re-Animate are definitely in pain. Typically screaming. An extra impressive scene is when they bring a dead cat back to life and have it attack them. So, they break its spine to kill it. And bring it back again. That's just screwed up. Highly recommended.
Dead and Buried
I decided I wanted to see this old school 80s zombie movie, without knowing anything about it at all. I thought it was an alien invasion movie, to be honest. But, no, it was a zombie movie. This one even had a twist ending, although the fact that I just told you it has a twist pretty much gives it away (yeah, it's the kind of twist that is pretty obvious if you're looking for it). But, if you forget that I told you it has a twist, it's pretty cool. I really wish I could talk about it without spoiling it. Let's just say, it's about zombies living among us. Like normal people. Yeah, these aren't Romero's zombies. It's pretty old school. Voodoo zombie old school. I liked it, by the way.
Quarantine
Yep, I saw this one in theaters. Opening night, to be honest. No, you're not surpised. It was good. Very good. It saddens me that this, Saw 5, and High School Musical 3 were the only horror movie options for October 2008. I mean, I guess last October just had 30 Days of Night and Saw 4, so at least we're not doing worse (just watch, next year, it'll be just Saw 6 and I will die a little inside). But, I did like this one a lot. The pacing was excellently done. We got to know our main characters and couldn't help but kind of like them, especially Miss Jennifer Carpenter, who was in the not particularly scary The Exorcism of Emily Rose (as Emily Rose). But, once the horror starts, they don't slow down. At all. It just keeps moving forward, gaining momentum and momentum and tension and tension...only to just end the same way as the trailer. And the poster. Yeah, I don't know who thought to market the movie by showing its ending, but that's freaking anti-climactic as hell. Don't do that. For all you future marketing dudes.
In any case, the rest of the movie was awesome, and the end would be pretty awesome too if I hadn't already seen it way too many times. I guess the ending would also have been more awesome if Miss Jennifer Carpenter wasn't just completely ridiculous. At the end, her character is obnoxiously incapable of doing anything besides mumble hysterically and scream. It works for like 15 seconds as a way to get the audience scared, but then it's just annoying.
Oh yeah, Maya from Heroes was in it too. I think she killed someone. I couldn't tell if her eyes were black at the time. I assume they were red, though. Maybe, black-ish red.
Now, I don't want to spoil this, but there is one, very good reason for why this movie does the whole "first-person camera recording the events that happened in real time thing". The cameraman kills a zombie with the camera.
Let me repeat that, now that you're sitting up again from the shock of the sheer awesomeness of that idea. The cameraman used the camera, specifically the lens of the camera, as a blunt instrument with which to repeatedly bludgeon a zombie in its face until it died. That didn't happen in Cloverfield, by the way. It definitely didn't happen in The Blair Witch Project. But, it happened in Quarantine. I managed to get the whole theater cheering for him.
Other than that, this one isn't really about the first-person thing that much. I mean, our camera man is a professional camera man, and he carries himself like one. Except when they're running away and stuff like that, of course. So, pretty much like normal, the audience is completely disoriented whenever something cool is happening on screen, but I guess that's how these things go.
Oh, and I was also impressed with how important it was to the film-makers to have a backstory and to tell it. That was well done. Definitely over the course of the movie, I felt like I was learning about what the cause of the outbreak was and why everything was happening. Suspension of disbelief was very achievable, which was nice. I appreciate that.
Let's see, next is Dance of the Dead.
So, um, it's worth pointing out that I apparently watched way more zombie movies than I had realized. Man, whenever I don't specifically pick a theme, it always just ends up being zombies. How does that happen? How can there be so many zombie movies that I want to see? I just don't know.
So, let's get back to Dance of the Dead. It's a fairly low budget indie high school comedy/zombie movie. To be perfectly honest, this German movie I saw a little while back called Night of the Living Losers was, approximately, 10000000 times better. I don't know how many zeroes I put in there. Just assume plus or minus a couple orders of magnitude of that number. Now, to be perfectly fair, this movie was perfectly decent. I enjoyed it. But, if you're going to do a silly high school zombie comedy, you need one of the zombies to be a stoner. You also need one of the zombies to try to get laid. I mean, what kind of high school comedy doesn't have those characters, and if you're doing that genre, then, well, you're going to have to make them zombies (note that Idle Hands gets credit for the character trying to get laid because the main character tries to have sex while his hand is trying to kill the girl).
Now, let me step back and admit that there is a character who gives up his life to be undead and get the cute chick who just turned into a zombie (and the sex appears to involve a lot of biting). So, there is that (if that scene isn't a powerful argument for abstinence, I don't know what is).
But, really, this movie just doesn't really have very many original ideas and plays by the rules of an 80s high school comedy so closely that it really feels stifling. We've got the nerds who end up impressing the girls who normally wouldn't give them a second look, the bully who used to beat up the nerds but is now helping them, the student council girl who's dating the main character who's life is pretty much directionless but he's using this as a way to prove he's worth something, the punk rockers who turn out to be pretty cool...and get stoned so maybe they count as the stoners, but I'm vetoing on account of the fact that they get stoned prior to finding that zombies are attacking, the mean teacher who helps them out and well, probably a bunch more cliches than that, but this is already a stupidly long sentence, so I'm just going to cut it short, right, about, here.
I will say that there's an extended scene by scene homage to Return of the Living Dead, which is cool, but hardly original and also more than a little overkill. Because, I mean, c'mon, if I'm watching your little zombie movie, then I've probably seen the original version of those scenes, and you didn't do anything clever to make yours better either, or even comparable. Otherwise, it was, just, decent. It definitely wasn't bad, but I guess it had been talked up a fair amount, so I kind of had high hopes for it. In the end, it just made me want to watch Night of the Living Losers again.
Oh, did I mention that in Night of the Living Losers, when the zombie is trying to get laid, one of his balls falls off? Yeah, I think it's normally some sort of German slang for not lasting very long, but it was just kind of awkward, in a funny way. Lastly, that movie had a hot Spanish love interest. That wins some major points too.
Okay, now for: not a zombie movie! Yep, it's true, I also watched a Japanese ghost movie (you'd think I'd seen just about all of those too, but no, there's a whole lot of those). I watched the original One Missed Call.
Now, I wasn't too sure what to expect going into this, because it's directed by this more than kind of screwed up Japanese directer named Takashi Miike. Note this is not Takashi Shimizu, who was my horror movie theme last year. In the end, I pretty much got a by-the-books Japanese ghost horror movie with your typical Japanese schoolgirl trying to find out why all her friends are dying and then trying to appease the ghost, but failing and, well, you know how it goes.
Yeah, for the genre, it was above average, but definitely not special, until the very end. The movie ends with Takashi Miike apparently waking up and going, "Wait, I make crazy evil shit like Ichi, the Killer. I have a reputation to uphold." And, well, let's just say he upheld it. Brilliantly, too. Instead of finishing with a gross or gory climax, it finishes with a happy, dreamy song about hope and happiness and bright blue skies and stuff. This is just after we watched the ghost take possession of the main character and stab her requisite older male friend. But, she didn't kill him. Just stabbed him and took him to the hospital, because that's what she would do when she was alive. And he's just giving up and letting her do this to him.
Yeah, not a bad way to finish an otherwise completely generic movie.
Let's see, then I saw Scanners because I thought it was a zombie movie, but it turns out it wasn't. In my defense, if you ever see a picture of the cover, there is no way in the world you won't assume that it's a zombie movie. There's basically a zombie on the cover, so, reasonably, you would assume that there's zombies in the movie. But, not so much.
It was okay. I'm just not that big a fan of David Cronenberg. He just thinks very differently from me. When I want a scene to be big and dramatic, he makes it very small and claustrophobic. Over and over again. Which isn't to say that he always goes small, it's just he never does makes things big when I would want him to. The result is that I'm just not that comfortable watching his movies. Things are never quite how I want them to be. So, yeah, that's just how it goes with him.
In this movie, there's all these psychics doing battle. Basically, this involves them staring at each other until somebody's head explodes. I mean, it's cool, but the flow of the battle is entirely controlled by the camera's cuts and the people faces. It makes it feel like we're just waiting, instead of watching.
Similarly, in A History of Violence, when Viggo Mortenson goes to kick William Hurt (or is it John Hurt, God, I'm so bad at their names) ass, he just goes there and kills the goons and then William Hurt. Mr. Hurt wants to talk and talk, because that's what he does, but Viggo just kills him. Again, that's not how it felt like it should go. On the other hand, it's clear he's playing with the role reversal as this family man switches back to his old persona, a silent, cold-blooded killer, while the man whose been trying to kill him can't shut up and barely seems dangerous (okay, that's an exaggeration, he seems like a snake who'll strike and kill given the slightest opportunity, but finds there are none, so he dies).
So, yeah, Scanners was alright.
And, lastly, I watched Diary of the Dead. Now, I'd heard some mixed reviews on this one. Well, I guess primarily bad reviews, with one really positive review actually counts as poor reviews, but anyways, I saw it. In Blu-ray by the way, looked gorgeous. Really did.
And, well, it certainly did do a lot of stuff wrong. Like the obnoxious narrator that couldn't shut up to save her life (disappointingly, she didn't die, but not because she could shut up, that's for sure). I swear, the movie would have been significantly better if she didn't feel compelled to talk all the time. And, so I end up having to ask what Romero was thinking when he chose to have her talking. See, the idea behind Diary of the Dead is that it's actually this student film called The Death of Death that some film school kids made during the beginning of the zombie apocalypse. They spend a lot of time discussing why they felt compelled to do this, and if that's something you're curious about go see the movie, so they can talk about it for you.
Anyways, they made it. And gave it an obnoxious narrator who has to point out every single even potential meaning in the shots she picked and comment on the nature of humanity, and the observer, and society and the media and whatever else is on her mind. So, I have to ask, why does she exist Mr. George A. Romero, sir? Are you speaking through her? Please say no, because you didn't need to have her in your other movies. Even Land of the Dead, which seemed unable to decide between being a stupid zombie movie and a discussion on humanity and the classes in society, didn't have a narrator walking us through every shot. I mean, you don't need her. So, do you use her as a part of the gimmick of this being a student film and so they're full of self-importance and have to explain everything for the viewer? Because, that's not cool. We don't want to see a student film; we want to see a George Romero film. Just to be clear.
But, well, it's also the best zombie movie I've seen in quite a while. It's annoying to watch, but it's also pretty good. There's some zombie kills that can stand up to anything, ever. Even though the characters are annoying, I enjoyed them. I enjoyed watching them fall apart. I liked how the camera was a central character. How the camera helped to tear them apart just as much as, if not more than, anything else. It's just annoying that the characters had to talk about that too.
But, most of all, I love the way George A. Romero ends his zombie movies. They're always so hopeless. Even when humanity wins, we're losing. But, most times, George just lets us lose, straight up. This movie stopped at just the right time. And I know it's because George Romero knows how to make these movies and does it so well. I loved ending it with the characters trapped in a panic room, surrounded by aimless zombies outside, and TVs inside showing them only hopelessness. I like knowing that it was in this situation that they sat down and started editing and making this movie.
It's just, so right. God, I love George Romero's zombie movies. They're really so much better than anything anyone else does.
That is all.
Francis
Monday, October 27, 2008
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Scathing Rock Band 2 Review
Okay, so I'll admit right now that I've hardly played through this entire game. I haven't even unlocked a plane in World Tour Mode, so I've only gotten about 55-ish of the 85 total songs on the disc. I've done about half the drum trainer beats and again, a little over half the drum trainer fills as well. I've done, maybe, 10 challenges and I've submitted a score for a competition once as well. And, well, all I can say is that this game is a massive disappointment to me.
Rock Band 2 is a an after thought. I can't imagine that it took them a year to do this game. I'd say they started working on it not long after they announced it in July. I mean, this game's killer feature is that it is easier to navigate its menus and play as a group. That's the killer feature. That's its big improvement over Rock Band 1. The menu system. And it costs 60 dollars. It's probably worth noting that this menu system was already in existence shortly after the first game came out, considering that it's the same menu system they use for the store. So, no, they didn't even have to make this new menu system, because they already had it.
They want to say that the 84 songs on the disc are worth the 60 dollars you're throwing away for this update to the menu system. They want to say that the drum trainer is worth a little something too. They want to say the community of Rock Bands that they're creating with these competitions is worth something. And I'll admit that it's hardly valueless. But it's not worth 60 dollars, either.
The tracklist is nothing special. At all. If the entire tracklist was put online for download, I'd end up buying about 30 of them, at the most. And of those, most of them would only be bought if they were 99 cents (my standards drop pretty fast once that happens). I mean, at this point, I strongly prefer to pick and choose what I'm adding to my collection, over being handed a ton of songs, most of which I don't want to play. I haven't gotten around to exporting my Rock Band 1 songs, but I know there are going to be some eliminations. Faith No More won't be making it across, that's for sure. Neither will the Beastie Boys. Both of them are in Rock Band 2.
Then there's the drum trainer. My problem with the trainer is that it's no different from practice mode on the drums. It's literally the same thing, only less interesting. I'm not going to be any more capable of actually playing the drums after using the trainer than I am now (which, just to be clear, is not very). Its problem is that it still uses the paradigm of notes moving across the screen and timing my hits to that. As long as I can see notes moving in front of me that I should be hitting, I'm not learning anything. I've already trained myself to be good at that. That's not drumming. It should show me a pattern and then ask me to replicate it. Ask me to keep replicating it without seeing any notes coming down. It won't be easy, but that's what would teach me to drum. And it would give me the confidence to actually try to do it, too. As is, it's pretty much valueless. Unless you really like hitting notes at 200 bpm, then I guess it's kind of fun.
Now, the challenges are a decent addition. But they're really a substitution. Harmonix took away the linear play-every-track-in-the-game single player experience and replaced it with a linear play-every-single-track-in-the-game-typically-more-than-once-but-on-different-instruments, experience. Overall, that experience is just okay and a little frustrating. What I liked about the single player mode of Rock Band 1 was that I could just keep picking whichever song I wanted to play and continue to earn money for the store. Now, though, it feels as though that's been relegated to the Quickplay experience, which I don't really like.
Speaking of the store, it's just a joke. Having watched the credits, I know that Harmonix has a huge team of artists. Apparently, the artists all took the last year off. There are almost no new clothes, at all. Literally, the only things they added were new shoes (most of which are still lame, but at least there's more lame options than before) and a section whose name can be paraphrased to "Cheap Clothes You Don't Want to Buy For Your Character". Now, one might want to ask why such a section needs to exist (I mean, isn't that the punk wardrobe, already? Burn!). But, clearly, there's no point in asking. They didn't care. The only real improvement to the Rock Shop is the ability to change angles when you're trying on clothes, so you don't have to pick an outfit and then just sit and wait while the character eventually turns around so you can see how it looks.
My problem with this game is that it isn't Rock Band 2. It's Rock Band 1.2. I mean, part of the problem, of course, is that Rock Band didn't need a sequel. Rock Band isn't about sequels and getting you to keep buying new games. It's a platform. It wants to sell me tracks. And, conveniently for Rock Band, I want to buy tracks. All these improvements they made were meant to help that platform exist. Clearly, now that I've bought Rock Band 2, I will never play Rock Band 1 again, at least on my PS3. But, if Rock Band 2 had never been released, my buying and playing habits wouldn't have changed at all (read as, I would still be playing the game and buying music for it).
To me, this means that Rock Band 2 effectively failed. It's not increasing my usage of the platform.
If Rock Band 2 actually wants to be a sequel, it needs to add something great. But it doesn't. It's a simple, incremental improvement. And I appreciate its existence, because it's an incremental improvement to a platform that I love dearly. But it's not a sequel.
Last year, Harmonix managed to release the ultimate rhythm game, in near perfect form. On their first try. That's amazing. They did so many things right it's just stunning. And they combined all that into an excellent package. A year later, all they could do was release the same thing again. That worries me. The team that made Rock Band 1 is gifted and innovative and dedicated and awesome. The team that tried to pass this off as the sequel to the best and most lasting game since Super Smash Brothers is none of those things. I'm hoping that Rock Band 3 can live up to its heritage, because Guitar Hero is very, very capable of catching up, and I'm too invested in Rock Band to even contemplate making the switch, and I don't want to have to.
That is all.
Francis
Rock Band 2 is a an after thought. I can't imagine that it took them a year to do this game. I'd say they started working on it not long after they announced it in July. I mean, this game's killer feature is that it is easier to navigate its menus and play as a group. That's the killer feature. That's its big improvement over Rock Band 1. The menu system. And it costs 60 dollars. It's probably worth noting that this menu system was already in existence shortly after the first game came out, considering that it's the same menu system they use for the store. So, no, they didn't even have to make this new menu system, because they already had it.
They want to say that the 84 songs on the disc are worth the 60 dollars you're throwing away for this update to the menu system. They want to say that the drum trainer is worth a little something too. They want to say the community of Rock Bands that they're creating with these competitions is worth something. And I'll admit that it's hardly valueless. But it's not worth 60 dollars, either.
The tracklist is nothing special. At all. If the entire tracklist was put online for download, I'd end up buying about 30 of them, at the most. And of those, most of them would only be bought if they were 99 cents (my standards drop pretty fast once that happens). I mean, at this point, I strongly prefer to pick and choose what I'm adding to my collection, over being handed a ton of songs, most of which I don't want to play. I haven't gotten around to exporting my Rock Band 1 songs, but I know there are going to be some eliminations. Faith No More won't be making it across, that's for sure. Neither will the Beastie Boys. Both of them are in Rock Band 2.
Then there's the drum trainer. My problem with the trainer is that it's no different from practice mode on the drums. It's literally the same thing, only less interesting. I'm not going to be any more capable of actually playing the drums after using the trainer than I am now (which, just to be clear, is not very). Its problem is that it still uses the paradigm of notes moving across the screen and timing my hits to that. As long as I can see notes moving in front of me that I should be hitting, I'm not learning anything. I've already trained myself to be good at that. That's not drumming. It should show me a pattern and then ask me to replicate it. Ask me to keep replicating it without seeing any notes coming down. It won't be easy, but that's what would teach me to drum. And it would give me the confidence to actually try to do it, too. As is, it's pretty much valueless. Unless you really like hitting notes at 200 bpm, then I guess it's kind of fun.
Now, the challenges are a decent addition. But they're really a substitution. Harmonix took away the linear play-every-track-in-the-game single player experience and replaced it with a linear play-every-single-track-in-the-game-typically-more-than-once-but-on-different-instruments, experience. Overall, that experience is just okay and a little frustrating. What I liked about the single player mode of Rock Band 1 was that I could just keep picking whichever song I wanted to play and continue to earn money for the store. Now, though, it feels as though that's been relegated to the Quickplay experience, which I don't really like.
Speaking of the store, it's just a joke. Having watched the credits, I know that Harmonix has a huge team of artists. Apparently, the artists all took the last year off. There are almost no new clothes, at all. Literally, the only things they added were new shoes (most of which are still lame, but at least there's more lame options than before) and a section whose name can be paraphrased to "Cheap Clothes You Don't Want to Buy For Your Character". Now, one might want to ask why such a section needs to exist (I mean, isn't that the punk wardrobe, already? Burn!). But, clearly, there's no point in asking. They didn't care. The only real improvement to the Rock Shop is the ability to change angles when you're trying on clothes, so you don't have to pick an outfit and then just sit and wait while the character eventually turns around so you can see how it looks.
My problem with this game is that it isn't Rock Band 2. It's Rock Band 1.2. I mean, part of the problem, of course, is that Rock Band didn't need a sequel. Rock Band isn't about sequels and getting you to keep buying new games. It's a platform. It wants to sell me tracks. And, conveniently for Rock Band, I want to buy tracks. All these improvements they made were meant to help that platform exist. Clearly, now that I've bought Rock Band 2, I will never play Rock Band 1 again, at least on my PS3. But, if Rock Band 2 had never been released, my buying and playing habits wouldn't have changed at all (read as, I would still be playing the game and buying music for it).
To me, this means that Rock Band 2 effectively failed. It's not increasing my usage of the platform.
If Rock Band 2 actually wants to be a sequel, it needs to add something great. But it doesn't. It's a simple, incremental improvement. And I appreciate its existence, because it's an incremental improvement to a platform that I love dearly. But it's not a sequel.
Last year, Harmonix managed to release the ultimate rhythm game, in near perfect form. On their first try. That's amazing. They did so many things right it's just stunning. And they combined all that into an excellent package. A year later, all they could do was release the same thing again. That worries me. The team that made Rock Band 1 is gifted and innovative and dedicated and awesome. The team that tried to pass this off as the sequel to the best and most lasting game since Super Smash Brothers is none of those things. I'm hoping that Rock Band 3 can live up to its heritage, because Guitar Hero is very, very capable of catching up, and I'm too invested in Rock Band to even contemplate making the switch, and I don't want to have to.
That is all.
Francis
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
What a Night!
So, my friend encouraged me to get back to writing stuff on the blog. Most likely, this means that I'll write a flurry of posts over the next two weeks or so, and then we'll see what happens. In the best case, I'll get back to writing posts, rather than just thinking of them. In the worst case, we'll get back to one post every other month. Or maybe I got those backwards, I don't really know (doesn't really matter, either).
In any case, I'm going to start using posting as an excuse to not play Dead Space. Why I need an excuse to not play a game that I'm really enjoying and am totally excited about will, hopefully, get its own post. But that's not this post. This post is about TV. Again. Yeah, I'm sorry.
Anyways, this was possibly the strongest Monday I've enjoyed since, um, well, fine, let's just go for the hyperbole and say it was the best Monday in my memory (while watching prime time television, which really means of the past 18 months). Terminator had a lot of fun. Chuck was as amazing as always. And, most amazingly, Heroes just finally got me hooked on this season. Yeah, that's how it is.
So, Terminator: The River is Really Freaking Hot Chronicles is really starting to remember to play to its strengths. Well, not its strength named River, but its other strength: you know, John. I'm finally over the fact that he cut his hair to look more military and intense and now they're finally starting to develop that character arc they started in the first episode when he killed the bad guy. Of course, the first step in starting that arc was admitting that he killed the guy, so it did feel kind of good to get that confirmation. I think John's a really fun character and this episode (as well as some other recent episodes) really showed it.
John is the only member of the group that is always looking for human contact. Two weeks ago, he made a friend in military school. Well, a friend whose life he saves and will help him in the future, but a friend all the same...plus the friend was in Carlsbad...I think I've heard of that place...although I've never heard of any La Brea Tar Pits there (on the completely unrelated topic of La Brea, Brea Grant is really hot, but I'll bring that up in the Heroes section). This week he hung out with a psychiatrist. And it's this time that he spends, interacting with real human beings who are not obsessed with preparing for the future destruction of the human race that John gets to be himself and interesting. It's fun knowing that he's supposed to become the charismatic future leader of the human resistance and then getting to watch him build connections and trust with everyone he gets the opportunity to interact with. He's training himself for that job without even knowing it. And he's training himself well.
River has been a little disappointing for me recently. For one, she hasn't tried to seduce John, or anyone else for that matter, since episode 2, I think. That obviously makes me sad. In exchange, they gave us tons of backstory on her. And, well, to be perfectly honest, I didn't really want backstory on her. I mean, I thought I did, but now I realize that I didn't really want it. Basically, if John doesn't know it, I don't want to know it. Obviously, I want John to find out about it, but that's a different story. River's an enigma. A black box from the future that was personally programmed by John to help himself. I already believed that she's supposed to seduce/sleep with him without being told that she's modeled after his, um, consort from the future. I'm still waiting for them to tell me what they plan to actually do with this whole 'River is not exactly functioning properly' thing. I guess I would be willing to settle for them actually doing something with it as well.
In other news, I really liked her obsession with suicide this week. I liked how much it scared her that John could potentially kill himself. The idea that she has to protect him from himself, and how she threw herself at it full force immediately. It was just really cool. Her last scene was even more thoughtful, though. After defeating another terminator sent from the future (although, at this point it's not totally clear that this terminator was sent be SkyNet...and I might be willing to go on record predicting that it was sent by someone else...yeah, that's my super vague prediction that's got pretty decent odds of coming true for the week), it self terminates to stop them from accessing its memories or reprogramming it. In her final scene, she's just contemplating that decision it made. Thinking about suicide. Thinking about what she would do if John were to die.
In other news, they introduced a random Asian chick for Derrick Reese to have sex with. The juries still out, but I'd say I can't come up with any reason for her to exist. It seems like she's a traitor, which is a little weird, to say the least. I mean, even if you were going to betray humanity and work with Skynet and get sent to the past, after that point, dude just do whatever you want, you don't owe SkyNet anything, it doesn't exist yet (admittedly, she mainly seems like a traitor because that's what she's doing, while also keeping tabs on John). The other possibility, which I'll admit is possibly more likely, is that she's prejudiced against re-programmed terminators like River and so is not actually following John for SkyNet but is following River, because she thinks it's her duty (to kill her). I hope she doesn't convince Derrick to come to her side (pun absolutely intended).
Now, moving on to Chuck. To be honest, there isn't much to say, besides that this show turns me into a stupid little girl. It's so amazing. There might be squealing involved. Scratch that. There are significant quantities of squealing involved when watching this show. The sequences with the Buy More are struggling, though, which is too bad. This is primarily because Chuck and Jayne don't actually spend any time there anymore. Morgan, who serves no real purpose, has to be the primary source of comic relief when Chuck is gone from the Buy More, and it just doesn't work right. But, now that the Indian dude gave up being Assistant Manager, maybe Chuck will take it and have to actually spend time at the Buy More again.
Let's see, week before last we got to enjoy watching Chuck attempt to seduce Inara's friend who slept with Mal. Obviously, that was hilarious. Last week was a little annoying because Bryce Larkin is annoying. Note that copious volumes of hilarity was involved in that as well. Very dense hilarity too, just to be clear (meaning, of course, that the sheer mass of hilarity involved was downright astounding). I'm sorry by the way. I don't know what I'm typing. It's late. In any case, every week goes by and I just keep loving this show. It makes me very happy.
But, I do have one complaint. I'm getting really tired of Charles Carmichael. Seriously, Chuck, be proud of Chuck Bartowski. He's awesome. Carmichael's just kind of stupid. I don't mind Chuck attempting to be that person as a joke, occasionally, but he's pulling it out every single episode. It get's old. I liked it when he introduced himself to new villians as plain old Chuck, when he would try to convince them that he was just working part time for the government. That was cool. Telling people that he's a spy and taking credit for saving the day, well, that's just not how Chuck was raised.
In other news, Jordana Brewster's finally coming on next week. It will be amazing. Although from the preview scenes, they're going to try to make her look kind of nerdy. I won't say it won't be hot (because, let's be honest, it will be), but it's not really the direction I would take her (um, let's not think about alternate interpretations of that statement, alright? Thanks). I will, of course, reserve judgement.
Okay, Heroes. Well, this was the best episode since sometime in Season 1. Hands down. What was awesome in this episode, you ask? Well, how about watching Father Petrelli take Adam down, like a little two-bit punk? Was that not the most awesome way to introduce your next villain, ever? It's okay, I'll answer for you. Yes. yes it was the most awesome way to introduce your next villain, ever.
Another awesome thing would be Brea Grant. I'd also like to admit that Brea Grant was not in Jericho. It turns out she has a doppelganger named Ashley Scott. You can kind of tell the difference between them because Ashley has a bigger mouth. Completely unrelated, but I think Brea Grant had a non-speaking role in Max Payne. There was some beautiful woman who looked just like Brea Grant (even the same hair cut and I can't imagine there's more than one girl with that hair, and I'm only sort of saying that her hair cut is ridiculous) who possibly get's killed by valkyries or something at a party (it's not really clear).
Did I mention that I like her? Well, I'm glad to be seeing that she's having doubts about this whole "join the bad guys, destroy the world" thing. I really hope Parkman saves her life, for both our sakes' (without Kristen Bell, there just aren't any other cutes blondes to look forward to on Heroes).
Of course, Hiro was awesome. They kindly let us know that Hiro did (spoiler) not (end spoiler) kill Ando last episode (OMG, RLY?!?). I know, who would have guessed that one.
Mohinder is basically going completely batshit crazy on us, and I wouldn't mind so much, except he's still doing the voice overs. That's kind of ridiculous. It made sense earlier in the series since he was supposed to be the voice of reason and intelligence. Right now, he's the voice of neither. So he should shut up. Of course, I'd take any excuse to make him shut up, but that does not invalidate my argument. I think.
Oh, and the most awesome thing of all. Peter lost his powers. Craziness, right there. Craziness. That's just, what needed to be done. I'm kind of hoping/expecting that somebody'll figure out how to give Peter his absorbing powers back, but it's still perfect. I can't wait for the rest of the series. What an episode.
That is all.
Francis
In any case, I'm going to start using posting as an excuse to not play Dead Space. Why I need an excuse to not play a game that I'm really enjoying and am totally excited about will, hopefully, get its own post. But that's not this post. This post is about TV. Again. Yeah, I'm sorry.
Anyways, this was possibly the strongest Monday I've enjoyed since, um, well, fine, let's just go for the hyperbole and say it was the best Monday in my memory (while watching prime time television, which really means of the past 18 months). Terminator had a lot of fun. Chuck was as amazing as always. And, most amazingly, Heroes just finally got me hooked on this season. Yeah, that's how it is.
So, Terminator: The River is Really Freaking Hot Chronicles is really starting to remember to play to its strengths. Well, not its strength named River, but its other strength: you know, John. I'm finally over the fact that he cut his hair to look more military and intense and now they're finally starting to develop that character arc they started in the first episode when he killed the bad guy. Of course, the first step in starting that arc was admitting that he killed the guy, so it did feel kind of good to get that confirmation. I think John's a really fun character and this episode (as well as some other recent episodes) really showed it.
John is the only member of the group that is always looking for human contact. Two weeks ago, he made a friend in military school. Well, a friend whose life he saves and will help him in the future, but a friend all the same...plus the friend was in Carlsbad...I think I've heard of that place...although I've never heard of any La Brea Tar Pits there (on the completely unrelated topic of La Brea, Brea Grant is really hot, but I'll bring that up in the Heroes section). This week he hung out with a psychiatrist. And it's this time that he spends, interacting with real human beings who are not obsessed with preparing for the future destruction of the human race that John gets to be himself and interesting. It's fun knowing that he's supposed to become the charismatic future leader of the human resistance and then getting to watch him build connections and trust with everyone he gets the opportunity to interact with. He's training himself for that job without even knowing it. And he's training himself well.
River has been a little disappointing for me recently. For one, she hasn't tried to seduce John, or anyone else for that matter, since episode 2, I think. That obviously makes me sad. In exchange, they gave us tons of backstory on her. And, well, to be perfectly honest, I didn't really want backstory on her. I mean, I thought I did, but now I realize that I didn't really want it. Basically, if John doesn't know it, I don't want to know it. Obviously, I want John to find out about it, but that's a different story. River's an enigma. A black box from the future that was personally programmed by John to help himself. I already believed that she's supposed to seduce/sleep with him without being told that she's modeled after his, um, consort from the future. I'm still waiting for them to tell me what they plan to actually do with this whole 'River is not exactly functioning properly' thing. I guess I would be willing to settle for them actually doing something with it as well.
In other news, I really liked her obsession with suicide this week. I liked how much it scared her that John could potentially kill himself. The idea that she has to protect him from himself, and how she threw herself at it full force immediately. It was just really cool. Her last scene was even more thoughtful, though. After defeating another terminator sent from the future (although, at this point it's not totally clear that this terminator was sent be SkyNet...and I might be willing to go on record predicting that it was sent by someone else...yeah, that's my super vague prediction that's got pretty decent odds of coming true for the week), it self terminates to stop them from accessing its memories or reprogramming it. In her final scene, she's just contemplating that decision it made. Thinking about suicide. Thinking about what she would do if John were to die.
In other news, they introduced a random Asian chick for Derrick Reese to have sex with. The juries still out, but I'd say I can't come up with any reason for her to exist. It seems like she's a traitor, which is a little weird, to say the least. I mean, even if you were going to betray humanity and work with Skynet and get sent to the past, after that point, dude just do whatever you want, you don't owe SkyNet anything, it doesn't exist yet (admittedly, she mainly seems like a traitor because that's what she's doing, while also keeping tabs on John). The other possibility, which I'll admit is possibly more likely, is that she's prejudiced against re-programmed terminators like River and so is not actually following John for SkyNet but is following River, because she thinks it's her duty (to kill her). I hope she doesn't convince Derrick to come to her side (pun absolutely intended).
Now, moving on to Chuck. To be honest, there isn't much to say, besides that this show turns me into a stupid little girl. It's so amazing. There might be squealing involved. Scratch that. There are significant quantities of squealing involved when watching this show. The sequences with the Buy More are struggling, though, which is too bad. This is primarily because Chuck and Jayne don't actually spend any time there anymore. Morgan, who serves no real purpose, has to be the primary source of comic relief when Chuck is gone from the Buy More, and it just doesn't work right. But, now that the Indian dude gave up being Assistant Manager, maybe Chuck will take it and have to actually spend time at the Buy More again.
Let's see, week before last we got to enjoy watching Chuck attempt to seduce Inara's friend who slept with Mal. Obviously, that was hilarious. Last week was a little annoying because Bryce Larkin is annoying. Note that copious volumes of hilarity was involved in that as well. Very dense hilarity too, just to be clear (meaning, of course, that the sheer mass of hilarity involved was downright astounding). I'm sorry by the way. I don't know what I'm typing. It's late. In any case, every week goes by and I just keep loving this show. It makes me very happy.
But, I do have one complaint. I'm getting really tired of Charles Carmichael. Seriously, Chuck, be proud of Chuck Bartowski. He's awesome. Carmichael's just kind of stupid. I don't mind Chuck attempting to be that person as a joke, occasionally, but he's pulling it out every single episode. It get's old. I liked it when he introduced himself to new villians as plain old Chuck, when he would try to convince them that he was just working part time for the government. That was cool. Telling people that he's a spy and taking credit for saving the day, well, that's just not how Chuck was raised.
In other news, Jordana Brewster's finally coming on next week. It will be amazing. Although from the preview scenes, they're going to try to make her look kind of nerdy. I won't say it won't be hot (because, let's be honest, it will be), but it's not really the direction I would take her (um, let's not think about alternate interpretations of that statement, alright? Thanks). I will, of course, reserve judgement.
Okay, Heroes. Well, this was the best episode since sometime in Season 1. Hands down. What was awesome in this episode, you ask? Well, how about watching Father Petrelli take Adam down, like a little two-bit punk? Was that not the most awesome way to introduce your next villain, ever? It's okay, I'll answer for you. Yes. yes it was the most awesome way to introduce your next villain, ever.
Another awesome thing would be Brea Grant. I'd also like to admit that Brea Grant was not in Jericho. It turns out she has a doppelganger named Ashley Scott. You can kind of tell the difference between them because Ashley has a bigger mouth. Completely unrelated, but I think Brea Grant had a non-speaking role in Max Payne. There was some beautiful woman who looked just like Brea Grant (even the same hair cut and I can't imagine there's more than one girl with that hair, and I'm only sort of saying that her hair cut is ridiculous) who possibly get's killed by valkyries or something at a party (it's not really clear).
Did I mention that I like her? Well, I'm glad to be seeing that she's having doubts about this whole "join the bad guys, destroy the world" thing. I really hope Parkman saves her life, for both our sakes' (without Kristen Bell, there just aren't any other cutes blondes to look forward to on Heroes).
Of course, Hiro was awesome. They kindly let us know that Hiro did (spoiler) not (end spoiler) kill Ando last episode (OMG, RLY?!?). I know, who would have guessed that one.
Mohinder is basically going completely batshit crazy on us, and I wouldn't mind so much, except he's still doing the voice overs. That's kind of ridiculous. It made sense earlier in the series since he was supposed to be the voice of reason and intelligence. Right now, he's the voice of neither. So he should shut up. Of course, I'd take any excuse to make him shut up, but that does not invalidate my argument. I think.
Oh, and the most awesome thing of all. Peter lost his powers. Craziness, right there. Craziness. That's just, what needed to be done. I'm kind of hoping/expecting that somebody'll figure out how to give Peter his absorbing powers back, but it's still perfect. I can't wait for the rest of the series. What an episode.
That is all.
Francis
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