Hot Tub Time Machine Is Not "All Wet"

It's been out for 5 weeks, but I finally saw Hot Tub Time Machine last night.  What a fun movie (if you don't mind the constant barrage of F bombs).  The title pretty much sums it up.  Four guys travel back to 1986 by way of an energy drink supercharged hot tub (yes, you read that right).  John Cusack is the 'star' but the real lead role goes to Rob Corddry (Old School, Semi-Pro) as Lou.
Lou is a Lou-ser (get it?) and after what appears to be a suicide attempt his buddies whisk him off to a dilapidated ski resort for a weekend getaway where they proceed to do the said time traveling.  Queue the 80's music and movie spoofs!  There are some neat cameos by Chevy Chase, Crispin Glover (Back to the Future) and William Zabka (The Karate Kid).  There's even a performance by Poison (not really, it's a bunch of look-alikes up on stage lip-syncing).
All-in-all it was a good way to spend 90 minutes.  It's not blockbuster material but I'd recommend it for a matinee or video rental.  Rated R for language, drugs, nudity and 80's fashions ;-).  Check it out....

Who Watches the Watchers?

There are seven television shows, total, that I'm currently watching.  They're not necessarily the best or most popular but they entertain well enough and that's all I'm looking for.  As I've stated in the past, I'm not a reality show fan.  You'll find none of those on my list.  Nor do I watch a lot of sports.  I do not find most very exciting in a spectator role.  That being said, this is what I have:
Currently, Monday is occupied by 24.  This, I think, is my guilty pleasure.  It is over-the-top, preposterous action and I've watched it loyaly for the past 5 of its 8 seasons.  It's about to wrap up its run (at least on Fox), so I'll be freed up on Monday nights before long.

Tuesday is LOST and V.  The former is coming to a close as well, and it has been a wild ride.  Did not miss an episode of this one and I hope the finale' is satisfying (2 hrs. on Sunday, May 23rd).  V, however, is just 'meh'.  Having watched the original series, I'm not seeing anything new here.  Once LOST is done and the new Syfy Tuesday lineup kicks off, I won't be going out of my way to watch.  It's catching me with its LOST lead-in right now.
Wednesday is Ghost Hunters.  While some list this as a "reality show", it is more of a documentary style investigation as opposed to the standard competition/drama.  As long as they remain legitimate, I'll continue to follow these guys.  Sometimes I catch Destination Truth afterwords,  but I consider it to be the National Enquirer of paranormal investigative shows (all flash and no substance).  It can be fun, though.

Thursday, of course, is Fringe.  One of the most intellectual speculative fiction dramas on television right now.  Created by the team that gave you Alias, LOST and the new Star Trek movie, how could it not be good?
Friday is Stargate Universe.  Quite a change from previous incarnations of the franchise, this show is very dark and gritty.  Some of the most humor I've seen displayed was on tonight's episode "Human" and it was mixed with its fair share of drama.

Saturday is now occupied by the new season of Doctor Who on BBC America.  The resurrection of this franchise has been quite a spectacle.  I enjoyed it back when it was hokey rubber costumes and cardboard sets.  Now it's top-notch science fiction.  I'll check out a Syfy original movie on Saturday night from time-to-time but it really depends on the subject matter (not as big on their disaster-of-the-month story as others).
Sundays are usually wide open.  Kind of a TV wasteland for me.  I used to watch Desperate Housewives but they were really, really finished after season 1.  I tried to watch more but it just got predictable and stupid.
Well, I think that's it for now.  This list will change when the off-season series start back up this summer.  Shows like Warehouse 13 (definitely) and possibly the new series Haven may draw me in.  We'll have to see.  Until next time my minions...

Take Me to the River....

Last night's Syfy Re-make of RiverWorld turned out to be pretty decent. Better than their first attempt a couple of years ago anyway. Based on Science Fiction author, Philip Jose' Farmer's series of books, the story poses the question; What if everyone who had ever lived on Earth were thrown together on a world at the same time? Five books tried to answer this question, but Syfy thought they could do it in a 4 hour television movie. Ambitious to say the least. Of course, they left it open for a possible series if they feel the viewership is there.
The pacing was good through the first three quarters of the movie but the ending felt rushed and convenient. The acting was decent featuring former cast members of such shows as Battlestar Galactica, Highlander: The Series, Smallville and the X-Men. The on-location scenes were refreshing after so many 'green-screen' environments. One word to Syfy, though, everything is really starting to look like Canada ;-)
Characters and storylines have been thrown about to accommodate a TV audience I suppose. The main 'hero' of the first book, To Your Scattered Bodies Go, ended up being the bad guy and a brand new hero was introduced.  While the basic story was based on the first 2 books, elements of all were thrown in.
If they do try to make this into a series, they may have already given away too much information.  Part of the 'mystery' was the Caretakers of RiverWorld.  What were they doing and why?  The movie revealed much of this.  I'm not sure where they can go with a possible series now.
At any rate, if you get the chance check it out,  I'm sure Syfy will repeat it many times for your viewing pleasure.

Awards and Stuff...

So, The Hurt Locker pulled it out.  People were expecting the Avatar sweep but you can always count on the Academy to mix things up a bit.  Kathryn Bigelow also won for her Direction of the movie (ironically, she's one of James Cameron's exes, if you didn't know).  Anyway, I'm not really surprised by that since it was a "serious" movie and not some silly sci-fi epic (that has made more money than any other film in history!).  Avatar and Star Trek did win some technical awards, however (can you say "consolation prize"?).
Other winners were Jeff Bridges (Crazy Heart), Christoph Waltz (Inglorious Bastards), Mo'Nique (Precious) and Sandra Bullock (The Blind Side).  Sandra is also the proud recipient of this year's worst actress Razzie Award for her performance in All About Steve.  Moving on....

This weeks box office has Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland coming in at $116 million, breaking a few records.  It has been getting mixed reviews, but money talks.  And, yes, Avatar is still at number 5 after twelve weeks in the theaters.  Brooklyn's Finest, Shutter Island and Cop Out were numbers 2, 3 and 4 respectively.  New this Friday will be Matt Damon's Green Zone.  New on video this week; Up In The Air, Precious and Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day.

Watched 2012 the other night.  Completely over-the-top action, but a lot of fun (in an end-of-the-world kinda way).  I've stated before that you have to give Rolland Emmerich (Director/Producer) credit for being the new Disaster Movie King and this generation's Irwin Allen (creator of such gems as Towering Inferno and The Poseidon Adventure).  His next big project is to take on the Isaac Asimov's Foundation story.  A difficult task to say the least.

Just found out today that J. Michael Straczynski will be taking over the writing for Superman and Wonder Woman comics in July starting with issues 701 and 601 respectively.  JMS is the creator of Babylon 5 and has numerous other writing credits to his name including Changeling (with Angelina Jolie) and most recently Ninja Assassin.  Haven't done the comic book scene in a while, might have to check it out.  One of his next projects is a remake of the Sci-Fi classic, The Forbidden Planet.


No update on Recession Proof as of yet.  The local indy film that I am associated with is still in post-production.  Editing should be complete soon...

And now I leave you with the latest Iron Man 2 trailer...

Something Old, Something New...

I finally watched Clerks 2.  I wasn't expecting much, but it was actually pretty good.  Kevin Smith is clever, albiet raunchy as hell.  Most people either love his stuff or hate it.  There's usually no middle ground.  His new movie, Cop Out with Bruce Willis, starts this Friday, 2/26/10.  Some say he's a Sell Out but, in this economy, you've got to get the work where you can.

New to video is Couples Retreat with Vince Vaughn, Jon Favreau, Jason Bateman and Kristen Bell.  Saw this the other night and it is pretty amusing.  Laughed out loud a few times.  My only complaint is that it was nearly 2 hours long.  That's fine for some movies but, for a comedy, it was about a half hour too long.

Finally, finally, almost done with the Dan Brown book.  It's lived up to all the hype.  This one should make a good movie.

I've recently been re-discovering Led Zeppelin.  I know...I know...Its really old school, but I'd forgotten how good they really were.  They only released 9 studio albums but every one has some great music on it.  You don't realize how many hits they had until you really start to dig into their library.

Ugh!  American Idol preempted Human Target tonight!  Glorified karaoke and its still on the air after all these years.  Does anyone even care what Randy or Simon have to say anymore?  Turned to the Olympics and what were they covering?  Cross-country skiing.  The announcer even said out loud (this is absolutely true) "This is a boring race".  I'm not sure if he knew his microphone was on or what.  For a network that admitted that they stood to lose millions on this deal, you'd think NBC would try to liven it up a bit!

Everything is...like 3D, man.

Thought I better chime in for 2010. And I say twenty-ten, by the way, but that's another discussion.
Well if you haven't heard about Avatar, you've been hiding under a rock on Pandora. 3D is now becoming the standard with studios standing in line to make all of their movies in the format. Why? I'm fine with 2D for most features. 3D should be reserved for the eye-popping epics that deserve it. I don't really need to see something like The Hangover 2 in 3D and, what's this, George Lucas wants to transfer the Star Wars flicks to the format. The dude has totally wigged out (he's going to be remaking them till he dies).

Well, enough of that. Avatar was great, as was Sherlock Holmes. Robert Downey Jr. has really turned his life around in recent years. I always knew he could do it. Just check out Chaplin sometime.
Watched Moon with Sam Rockwell. Excellent job on that low budget gem. Saw Funny People and it didn't live up to its name. Viewed a handful of others over the past couple of months, but nothing too memorable.
The Wolfman is out with underwhelming reviews, but Percy Jackson looks to be doing well. Funny how Chris Columbus launched both Harry Potter and Percy. Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland will open soon. He needs a hit under his belt. I haven't been too impressed with him lately. Summer blockbusters will be here before you know it. Only 77 more days until Iron Man 2!
24 is back on the air and is another good season so far. Things really picked up when Manny Coto took over daily operations on the production a couple of seasons ago. Production has been halted for a week or so while Kiefer Sutherland undergoes an elective surgery to clean up a small ruptured cyst (Eww!). Also, LOST has returned for its final season and is starting to answer some questions. The new Fox action series, Human Target, is not bad and more new episodes of Fringe will be aired starting April 1st.
Still trying to make it through Dan Brown's new Book, The Lost Symbol. It's really good, trying to find the time to read it is the problem.
Well, hope all is well with you, my minions. Let me know if there is anything you'd like to hear me chat about. Later...

What's New?

Looking forward for the next couple of weeks at Ye Olde Movie House.  Avatar and Sherlock Holmes hit the big screen in time for Christmas.  I hope to post some reviews and look back at 2009.

Stay tuned...