So I just watched Cloverfield from Comcast On Demand.  I’m sorry that I payed five bucks to see it.  Maybe two might have been more about what it’s worth.  Which, I guess, makes a good rating system.  Two dollars out of five.  Heh heh.  Anyway…

So … what the flirk?!  Blair Witch Project meets Godzilla.  They even had to put in the runny nose scene.  I could have done without that, thanks.

Stupid big alien thing wipes out tons of military.  How in the world did that thing not get killed?  I mean maybe if it had technology, like shields or something … maybe.  But no.  It’s just a big fleshy thing and even carpet bombing it didn’t phase it any?  Come on!  I don’t care how big it is, flesh can only take so much punishment!

The little bugs were a cute touch.  Not really inspired, mind you.  Just like yet another zergling swarm.  Heck, even then they were hardly original.  Sci-fi loves a good bug swarm.  Still, the movie was better having them than not.

But come on!  Are people really so stupid?  And I don’t just mean the whole brave insane and assured death for love bit.  You know, the romantic in me likes to believe that much at least could happen.  But why does no one ever arm themselves?  I mean freaking hell!  They saw the bug swarm and did nothing.  Then they lost one of their group to the bugs and did nothing.  Then they kill one on their way back from the rescue and leave the damn fire ax embedded in the bug like it just had to be alone.  And it was alone! Bad writing there.  But I guess killing them all before they’d suffered even more would have been bad form.  Or something.

Still, why is it in so very many movies, people never pick up a damn weapon?  Aliens shooting you with ray guns while your military has machine guns and you have a breech-fed shotgun?  Don’t pick up the dead soldier’s machine gun and spare ammo.  Don’t pick up the alien’s ray gun and energy packs.  Just keep your shotgun, and when you run out of ammo, throw it at an alien.  Nerf!  So freaking stupid, and yet nearly every movie and TV show runs along those lines.  I mean drop me into a situation like that and I’d  be freaking armed to the teeth with every damn gun I could carry.  Over every piece of armor I could put on myself!

Or something like that.

And I mean, I know it’s New York and they don’t have like normal buildings, but sheesh, you’d think you could hole yourself up somewhere.

If I were in like an alien invasion or zombie movie, the first thing I’d do is run to the nearest super Walmart (or something similar) and weld all but one door closed.  I don’t care if I have to rip panelling out of some back down to weld over the glass doors out front, I am making that building secure!  Then I’d set up all of the generators in the dock area to make a generator room.  All of the ventillation is getting similarly reinforced, and HEPA filtered to hell and back.  And I’d arm myself with whatever shotguns and such they’ve got in there and keep the refrigerated and frozen food as cold as I could once the power goes out.  If it goes out.  There’d still be plenty of unperishables and bottled water and such in there too, but go through the perishables first because they won’t last as long.

But anyway, the point is once you’re in a defensible position, then you start messing around with looking for survivors or striking back or whatever.  Secure yourself.  Set yourself up for a long siege.  And then do stuff.

I’d probably even make my sleeping quarters suspended from the ceiling so that if a zombie somehow walked in, I’d still be way over his head, out of reach.  I’m not sure what I’d do if it were aliens, like in Cloverfield.  But it’d basically amount to the same of first setting up a secure perimiter.

So when all of those people are running around, running across the bridge, running through the city, et cetera - I’d have been finding a place to set up shop, collecting guns and ammo and food and water, and welding the damned doors closed and securing the windows and air vents with reinforcements of steel, steel, and more steel.  Let the invaders get through that.  I’ve seen enough zombie and alien invasion movies to know that you don’t run around all willy nilly.  If you’re going to survive, you’ve got to be smart from the beginning.

And you’ve got to accept that people will die.  No freaking bug/zombie-bitten refugees in my camp!  Want to stay in my domain?  First you’re going to sit in a quarentine room with everyone else.  I’ve seen Alien.  I’m gonna make sure no little bugger bursts out of your stomach.  Or that you don’t turn into some monster yourself.

I really don’t get how these people survive in these movies.  Well, other than “it was in the script”.  Bad writing.  I think Cloverfield sets a new low standard there.  Who the heck is going to run around carrying a camera like that through all of that?  Oh my god!  Alien bugs are trying to eat me!  Let me film it!  I don’t think so.

I know.  I’m rambling.  I’m not feeling so well.  But yeah … I’m waiting for the day when an intelligent movie of that genre is made.  Cloverfield certainly isn’t one.

Okay, so it’s been a while since I’ve actually gone to a movie theater. In fact, I’m not even entirely sure where the local theater is around here. This place is messed up.

But that said, thanks to the glory of large flatscreen LCD TVs and such, the home is now a pretty darn good theater itself. And with movie channels and Comcast “On Demand” and such, every so often it’s nice to plop down and enjoy some old movie that I missed. Like Hot Fuzz.

What can I say?

F__king brilliant!

I mean I thought Shaun of the Dead was good, but Hot Fuzz totally blows it away as the best satire movie ever. These folks are awesome. This isn’t cheap humor like those Scary Movie wannabes. This is real comedy, done well. If you haven’t seen it but thought about it, I’d highly suggest it. The plot managed enough of a twist to actually be interesting, which totally wasn’t expected from a satire movie. The acting was well done, not over the top, and not playing down to the lowest common denominator. Everything just fell right into place, which so often doesn’t happen in movies. And, of course, it was just damn funny!

It kind of makes me wonder actually … why is it that the Brits can produce such fine humor these days while the Americans can barely get past the level of fart jokes? I mean you have to go to the level of Clerks 2 to even remotely catch something of the same quality. (Not that there aren’t other View Askew movies worth watching, but with the exception of Dogma perhaps, they lack a certain refined smooth transition from scene to scene that one would expect from a movie.)

Anywho, Hot Fuzz deservedly earns a whopping 10 out of 10 nipping swans in my opinion!

Yes, that’s right. Sony has officially announced their new movie download service for the Playstation 3. Content will come from many, including the ever famous Fox, MGM, Lionsgate, Warner, Disney and Paramount. From the beginning it should have around 1200 TV shows and approximately 300 movies. Video will be in both standard def (SD) and high def (HD).

There are two options of service. There is Video On Demand (VOD) where you are effectively buying a license to watch something once, AKA a download rental where your download self-destructs after you watch it. That will run about $2 per TV show and $3 for a movie. Or something like that.

Then there’s the Electronic Sell-Through (EST) service, which you basically buy your download to keep. Well, keep locked to your specific PS3 anyway. Get a new one or possibly even need repairs and oops, no more access to your own paid-for EST movies. And of course keeping your EST downloads costs you a lot more than the one-off VOD downloads. But hey, you get to keep it and watch it as many times as you want. And you can even transfer it to your Playstation Portable (PSP) a total of one time. Yay?

So it may not be the most amazing deal ever. Still, anything is better than nothing, and this sure ain’t nothing! Sony is finally bringing the PS3 into the 21st Century. I bet that sure pisses off Microsoft and their XBox 360.

Okay, so, not really. We don’t really have Indy singing, “ku ku cachoo, meow moo, vroom eeek boom,” to save the world from a terrible ravaging by off-key Nazi burlesque show dancers.

But we do have Indy running around to snag himself a crystal skull.

Hmm…

I dunno. Part of me is excited. Part of me is afraid Harrison Ford is going to end up making an Indy equivalent to the Star Wars prequils. But then Dr. Jones never kissed his sister while dueling with his cyborg father, so maybe the new movie won’t end up being such a campy overdramatic melodrama even if it is done by George Lucas.

I guess time will tell. I may have to actually go out and see it in a **gasp** theater. I don’t think I can wait for it to come out on HBO.

So what do you fine readers think of this whole new Indiana Jones affair?

And do you think there will be a new video game?

Brought to you by Late-O-Vision, the latest in technology.

Okay, so first up for today’s grinding is Fantastic Four: Rise Of The Silver Surfer. What can I say? Now that computer generated graphics are making all sorts of new things realistic-enough-looking, comic books turned into movies are the latest craze. One by one they’ll get through them all, mostly reinventing them all the way. And Fantastic Four is no exception. Is the sequel any better than the original?

Hmm…

Not really.

It’s not that it’s bad. It’s a passable enough movie to mindlessly entertain for a couple of hours. And in high-def it looks quite stunning. Thanks HBO HD! But the ending basically sucked. It was forced. There’s just no kind way to put it. Two hours do not contain enough room for the Silver Surfer’s storyline. Sorry. It just shouldn’t have even been tried.

Not to mention the ending in general. I think Days Of Our Wives could have pretty much written that ending. It was the bastard love-child that could have been anyone’s baby.

And, of course, there wasn’t nearly enough of Jessica Alba nude. If there’s one thing any movie with her in it should have, it’s more of that. But then one can never really get enough naked Jessica Alba. Even if she is blond in these movies. She was so much hotter as a brunette.

Anywho…

So it’s an okay-ish movie. For a sequel it’s not half bad. Most sequels are by far worse than the original. This one isn’t by far worse. It’s only slightly worse. Almost as good. So hey, if you haven’t seen it, and you liked the original, I say give it a shot. The Stan Lee cameo was cute. I’d give it a Fantastic Four out of five.

Next up is a movie I swore I’d never watch: 23. It’s creepy-ish. But that isn’t why I swore I’d never see it. It has Jim Carrey as the lead role. Ugh. I just never found him funny. He’s just over-the-top goofy. And not in a good Robin Williams way. Jim Carrey feels too … forced. Like accidentally that became “his thing” and now he has to make himself do it waaaay too often, so that it’s not even funny. It’s just … annoying.

Strangely enough though, I could picture him being creepy. So I gave the movie a shot. (Thanks again HBO.) And honestly, he almost pulled it off. I think he’d make a much better job of creepy movies than of goofy comedies.

As for 23 (not to be confused with 24) the movie was actually worth the watch. Unfortunately it’s not one of those intellectual movies where they give you enough clues to figure it out for yourself with certainty until pretty much they hand it to you. But at the same time it’s not one of those movies where you see it coming a mile away. It keeps you guessing-ish. I mean I did have it figured out nearly from the beginning, but just as a guess, not as a certainty. And they threw in enough reasonable doubt along the way that I found myself wondering from time to time if I might actually be wrong and the storyline would in fact arc off in another direction. In the end, I was right, but at least it kept me enjoyably uncertain.

And more than that, as a pagan who is passingly familiar with concepts like numerology, I found it eminently entertaining to see it pushed to an obsession. I can sooooo see that happening with some people. And so, of that, 23 wasn’t a half-bad choice for a number.

As a psychological thriller itself, it kept you on your toes enough to be entertained. It certainly didn’t bore. And it even contained enough real depth of abnormal psychology to seem well researched.

All-in-all, it was as good of a movie as anyone can expect from Hollywood these days. Short of the occasional epic grandeur of something like The Lord of the Rings, you’re just not going to see much that will really impress. But 23 comes darn close. So for that, I give it an almost perfect 23 out of 24 nutcases.

Congrats Jim! Maybe you’ve found a new calling.