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!

The world is a scary place. The internet is no different. Everyone is out to get you. Everyone wants to hurt you. And they’re always thinking up horrible new methods to do it.

Okay, so yeah, that’s just a tad over the top. No, life isn’t really that bad. But yes, there really are hackers out there in the world trying to be mean and nasty.

Just ask Adobe. What is more internet than Adobe’s Flash providing all sorts of goofy little Flash applets all over the intarweb? Well Symantec has found a weakness in it. An exploited weakness. With at least 20,000 web pages found to carry links to a site that hosts malicious Flash applets that exploit the weakness. Not good. Fortunately, it’s only Adobe’s own Flash Player stand-alone application that is vulnerable. Internet browsers like Internet Explorer, Firefox, et cetera that support Flash plug-ins aren’t vulnerable. They’re safe. Still, not such a great moment for Adobe.

Speaking of the internet, what about one of the biggest ISPs out there, Comcast? Well just a couple days ago, for a mere few hours, Comcast.net was hacked by a couple of losers who redirected the webpage to one with text that read, “KRYOGENIKS Defiant and EBK RoXed COMCAST. sHouTz To VIRUS Warlock elul21 coll1er seven.” Wondrous stuff that. Just the hack of the ages there. Fortunately Comcast fixed everything by Thursday and is working with the police, even if they are stymied.

Still, a hack is a hack, and of all businesses out there to be well protected, you’d have thought one of the great cable ISPs like Comcast.net would have held up better than that. Oh well.

And speaking of ISPs and hacks, let’s jump across the pond to everyone’s favorite BT Home Hub wi-fi internet router, which has yet another security hole. When left on the default settings. You see, to combat stupidity from being a factor in hacking the device, recently the default administrator password from “admin” to the device’s serial number. Each being unique and relatively harder to guess than “admin”, it seemed a fairly intelligent way to go. And since it’s stamped on the device you never have to go far to find where you wrote it down. Except that, according to GNUCitizen, it’s not actually all that difficult to request the serial number from the device over a network connection. Hmm. Not so brilliant then. Just yet another reason to change from the default settings to actually secure ones. Good advice for everyone out there, not just for BT Home Hub owners.

In fact, when was the last time you Windows users patched your bugs and holes? You naughty naughty lot. Automatic Updating should be fixing it for you. If you haven’t turned it off that is. Why do I ask? Well, according to a new study by Akamai, China and the US lead the way for denial of service and exploit traffic in 2008. Yes, that’s right. Exploits. As in your computer has a security hole the size of Texas that was fixed years ago, but because you don’t think updating is worth it, you got hacked and now hackers are sending out traffic from your computer. Goodness knows that the past years have seen a great number of really effective worms, viruses, and Trojans for Windows PCs. All of them with fixes. Have you updated your computer with those fixes? Because in the world of always-on-line high-speed internet, if you’re not part of the solution, you really are part of the problem. Update your PC today. With Windows it’s just as simple as turning on your Automatic Updates. Or clicking on that little Windows Update button. It’s never been easier. Protect yourself. Protect us all. Update your PC. Please!

So yes, hubs, computers, even cell phones can be hacked.

Cell phones?

Yes, that’s right, cell phones.

Such as a bug found in Motorola’s RAZR firmware allows intentionally malformed JPG images to execute whatever code a hacker’s little black heart desires. Fortunately, after a year of working on it, Motorola finally has a fix. Yipee! Way to keep on top of things Motorola!

But all is not lost. It’s a scary scary world, but there are plenty of folks out there finding the security holes. And plenty of people fixing them. Or telling you how to protect yourself from them. It’s a scary place, but we’re here to help. If you let us.

It’s been a while since my rant on what happened to me with Crest’s latest mouthwash. But I decided that I couldn’t be the only one, so I thought I’d do some research.

Did Crest even do any kind of testing before marketing this product?

Seriously?

Okay, so my search of this grand wide interweb thing has brought up all sorts of complaints on Crest’s Pro-Health mouthwash. It would seem I am far from alone. Besides people who have reacted as badly as I have to it, what with burns on my tongue and all, there are less extreme reactions as well. Side effects may include: burning, loss of taste, and brow / green staining.

WHAT?! A mouthwash that avoids the ‘burn’ of alcohol burns your tongue and stains your teeth and gums? Yep. And it causes what is described as a lost of taste similar to when one burns their mouth on hot food. And it would seem by the number of complaints that this is in fact a common occurance that people have some sort of a reaction to this mouthwash. Way to go Crest!

Now, I’m sure someone out there loves it. Obviously not everyone can have a negative reaction. Some people must get by without having it chemically burn their mouth. But with as many people that do have problems with the stuff, it really makes you wonder how this stuff ever got on store shelves in the first place…

Next up to bat is Comcast. I reviewed my experiences with them when going to high def. Well the darndest thing happened the other day. I was flipping through the channels and couldn’t find what I wanted. Odd. So I started looking harder. It’s not like channels just vanish, right? Well, apparently they do, if you go with Comcast. And just as apparently other channels just jump around to new numbers when this happens. I’m still not even sure of the tally. All I know is that without any notice whatsoever, Comcast changed around their lineup and dropped some channels. Aren’t I paying for them? Can they do that? Welcome to the wonderful world of Comcast.

Okay, yes, so they’re all old movies. But if you wanted a review on a recent movie, you’d be looking at … well … some places that reviews recent movies. Instead, you’re on my blog of all places. How could you turn your back on professionals like that?! That’s all right. I forgive you.

So, thanks to the modern marvels of movie channels (thanks to my recent Comcast upgrade) I bring to you two fruits and a funeral. But not necessarily in that order.

First up, a movie that needs deserves no protection, it’s Smokin’ Aces. What can I say about this movie? Well, not much. On paper it sounds great. Lots of personalities toting heavy firepower, a bit of insanity, and everyone and their brother after one poor guy. Sounds like the action flick of the century, right? And yet never has a more boring movie been made. You keep expecting that they’re setting up for one awesome mind-blowing scene. Only then it ends in a hospital with the good guy pulling the plug. Okay, so as far as the almost complete lack of plot goes, it’s a plot twist. Except no one came to see a plot. They came to see cool action scenes. The mother of all contract killer gangbangs! But it’s just an eternal setup with an anticlimax. Boring! DOA. Dead and buried. No wonder it went to TV so quickly. Next!

So next up is Superman Returns. It’s Superman. How can you go wrong with Superman?! Okay, so the special effects are cool. In spite of all of the internet buzz on Superman’s package having more banana than a fruit salad, I found the movie fairly enjoyable. Even if he’s still wearing spandex. The beginning scene’s laws of physics prove the writers don’t know science. Fine. That’s the movies for you. It’s based on a comic book. The same minds that give you super powers from radioactive spiders and from gamma radiation. Okay, we get it. You don’t understand physics! I can look past that.

I can even look past the costume!

But I just can’t look past the totally missed plot devices and passed-up opportunities. Love triangle? Nope. Superman’s half-human son being at least partially immune to kryptonite and saving the day when his dad couldn’t? Nope. Custody battle or even a scene of a tense meeting of the father’s to discuss what to do? Nope. WTF?!

Maybe it’s because I’m trying to become a fiction author and so I think more about plot devices than I used to, but Superman Returns is just full of more dropped balls than Lycra codpieces. I’m thinking maybe they named it Superman Returns because if you bought it, or got it for Christmas, you’ll probably be returning Superman toot sweet. This is one rotten banana! Okay, so it’s really not that bad. It’s an interesting enough movie. It just could have been so much more. But then, what can we really expect from people who write ‘graphic novels’ instead of real ones?

But let’s not live in despair! To save the universe steps up a man nuttier than a coconut. (Which, considering coconuts aren’t nuts, is either ironic or poignant.) It’s Robin Williams to the rescue in Man of the Year! It’s hard to go wrong with Robin Williams? And here’s a movie that really hits home. It’s funny. That’s a nice plus. But it’s also scary because so much of it, so very much, really is what we see and want to see. Or at least I do.

A comedian who runs for presidency of the United States. A presidential candidate that actually stands for change, what the people need, and screw the party politics and special interest groups and lobbyists! Who doesn’t love that thought to begin with? But then did he really win, or did the e-voting machines have a bug? I won’t ruin the movie for you, because this one is actually worth seeing. If you’re tired of politicians and the system, if you’ve ever doubted the honesty of computerized voting, you’ll die laughing when you see this movie.

My only gripe is the ending. It’s the only ending that this world can come to. And that in itself is a sad testament. I wish we lived in a better world.