Where to begin¡¦where to begin¡¦

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Where to begin¡¦where to begin¡¦

On Friday night Amy and I saw Bourne Supremacy. It was ok. I thought it was better than the first one, but Mr. Machine disagrees. I thought the second one had more elements of espionage gleaned from movies like Patriot Games, which I like. The car chase seemed better too. Overall though I¡¯d have to say it was a B movie. I still don¡¯t ¡°get¡± Matt Damon.

Saturday night we went to see Collateral. The movie starts off slow, but picks up quick in the second act. Without giving too much away, I¡¯ll say I enjoyed the fact that one of our ¡°heroes¡± is killed off just as you think he is about to end the movie on a good note. I had read Ebert¡¯s review of the movie and he was unhappy with ¡°another summer subway ending in an action movie.¡± Too bad Collateral ends on the MTA¡¦not exactly the subway¡¦and neither was the transit system in Spiderman. The MTA seems to find a better place in Collateral than in Spiderman though. In Spiderman the subway was just a prop to provide a bit of action, but the MTA plays a central role in the philosophy espoused by Collateral. If you are quick, you can guess the ending of the movie when ¡°Vincent¡± (Tom Cruise) makes a comment about it earlier in the film. Ultimately, I wish Mann would have avoided this tacky ending though¡¦or at least making Vincent¡¯s last words a little less cheesy. Those of us who pay attention while we are watching films do not need to be reminded of characters earlier comments when they come to fruition later. Three of the four main actors in this film are major box office names (Jada Pinket-Smith, Tom Cruise, and Jamie Foxx). I don¡¯t like any of them. They all surprised me in this film though. Most surprising is how quickly we forget about the color of Tom¡¯s hair, and how far Jamie Foxx¡¯s roles have come since his ¡°asshole¡± role days; although, the scene with Felix (while necessary) reminds us of why we used to hate him. Foxx¡¯s saving grace comes late in the movie when he makes a very bold move when Vincent says ¡°what?!…what are you going to do about it Max?!¡± The fact that that scene sticks out the most in my mind must mean Foxx¡¯s portrayal of a slightly wimpy guy must have been good. We¡¯ll see how well he can play a confident (and rightfully so) Ray Charles without seeming like the asshole Jamie Foxx we all came to know in movies like Any Given Sunday.

Sunday. Alien Vs. Predator. Don¡¯t bother unless you are one of the Giger faithful, or perhaps I should say Alec Gillis and Tom Woodruff faithful. The special effects were good enough, only a few scenes where the xenomorph¡¯s were noticeable CG. Somehow the predator¡¯s face seems much less animated than in the original movie. Also, c¡¯mon guys¡¦don¡¯t give every single predator (with their masks off) in the background the same dumb dumpy mandibles hanging out at the sides look. Throughout the film you¡¯ll hear yourself saying two things: The first being ¡°oh, hey!¡± when you see a reference to one of the other films in the two franchises (like when Lance stabs his pen in between his fingers alluding to the ¡°android trick¡± scene in Aliens) or to parts ripped from the novels and comic books. The second thing you¡¯ll say is ¡°oh¡¦hey¡¦wait a minute!¡± after noticing the plot holes that are too numerous to bother counting. The worst hole in the plot is the fact that they squeezed it into one hour and 27 minutes. That only allows for a few choice moments of Alien and Predator duels after we finish with the (lengthy for this short of a film) exposition. The predators seem dumber, maybe because these are supposed to be younger hunters than the ones in the other two films. As bad as the dialogue and plot are, I have to say that this film out does Alien Resurrection by spending less time on the characters. Paul Anderson realized that nobody was coming to see AVP for the actors, because we sure didn¡¯t go to Alien Resurrection to see Wynona Ryder. With no Sigourney Weaver¡¦why bother with character development? I like the potential suggested for a sequel, as cheesy as it was presented¡¦hell, why not? I¡¯d rather see AVP2 than American Pie 4.

In the past week, Amy and I played a lot of tennis. I¡¯m starting to understand the game, but it is immensely frustrating to deal with that net¡¦ I wonder if it will impact my racquetball game whenever I get to play again. Amy went to the Ohio State Fair on Monday and Tuesday and was fascinated by the local yocals. Even though she was here for more than ten days, it seems like it went by really fast. I have a feeling my life is going to be like that (fast) for at least another three weeks if not much longer. Amy is on a plane back to LAX as I write this. Once she arrives she¡¯ll play the role of ¡°real estate agent¡± for me as it appears I¡¯m all alone in my search for a living space now. Mr. Machine keeps telling me to wait on him, but at this point it is too late to wait any longer. All of my meticulous preparation means nothing if I¡¯m sleeping in my car in a Wal-Mart parking lot on September 1st.
By the way – yes I know in some browsers some weird shit is starting to happen with the punctuation in these entries…. I’ll look at that problem when I have time to worry about things that aren’t a basic human need (like housing).

7 thoughts on “Where to begin¡¦where to begin¡¦

  1. Went to AVP with Jon and enjoyed it as a pure action cartoon. The “black chic as hero” (a la S. W. as feminist hero) was a little to over-the top p.c. for me. “be nice to them and they will be nice to us!” is just stupid.

  2. the worst part has got to be the ending…

    how in the hell is she supposed to not freeze to death? there is NOBODY around and shes standing in a tank top….

    also, thats a lot of high tech equipment for being supposed current day….

  3. hey…you forgot…Lex is the best ice climber in the world, she’ll just climb her way back to civilization.

    Actually, I read a review of the film yesterday that theorizes we don’t need to care about what happens to her because the next film will take place completely on the predator ship and act as a prequel for Alien explaining the ship on Acheron….was a predator ship. That sounds cool except for the fact that the ship from Alien looks nothing like the AVP ships…and how will they explain the “navigator”? Another type of predator we haven’t seen yet? I don’t think so…

    and….how did that predatoralien chest burster survive getting speared by it’s mommy a few minutes before? AND (Amy thought of this one) why does momma alien kill a host for one of it’s babies? This goes against what we saw in alien 3 and 4.

    yeah..so you could go on all day about the plot holes obviously. Somebody should write a book on all the mistakes…it would be longer than the actual script!

  4. there is no way they can make a realistic sequel on that ship..

    the only predators who have trouble killing aliens are the non-blooded youngsters. that ship was FULL of veterans and it would take a minimum effort to find and kill a single alien..

    not to mention the fact that considering the fact that they have been hunting aliens for….oh…….thousands of years, dont you think they would have some sort of biofiltering device that could detect hosts?

    no, if they really want to make a good sequel they should focus on the aftermath of the original aliens saga. at least then the humans could legitimatly survive…..

  5. well actually…they SHOWED the biofiltering device to detect hosts…remember the part where “lex” shoots her friend…but the Predator’s scanner can still see the (still) living alien chestburster?

    The way I see it, in this day and age, that ending is OBVIOUSLY a set-up for a sequel. Add to that the fact that if you dig around on the internet you find this:
    http://www.rottentomatoes.com/vine/showthread.php?p=5021152#post5021152 When they say Ian…are they talking about Ian Holm (aka Bilbo Baggins and Ash)…or was one of the no-namers in the AVP cast named Ian? Well…it would have to be Ian Holm, since Sanaa was the only character not killed off from the cast of AVP…so that means the AVP sequel is going to lead directly into Alien…it would have to.

    so…yeah

    Technically the “sequel” you described would not be a sequel to AVP, but to Alien 4. Which I too would rather see…the spaceship crashes on earth and aliens running around (sort of like the pathetic night time alien horde we see in AVP). This would be great for so many reasons..
    #1 an army of aliens in the light of day, which we have still yet to see

    #2 more future military technology

    #3 first real look at the future earth in this Aliens story, the closest we got before was a space station

    #4 the possibility of gigantic hives in abandoned malls and stuff like that that we’ve read about in the novels.

    #5 animal aliens…the bull alien, snake alien, gorilla alien, and so on that I still have toys of …wonder what a shark alien would look like…or bald eagle alien..etc.

    #6 Ripley

    #7 Bishop (another android) could come back, since there must be tons of them running around on earth…unless the models were discontinued.

    #8 We’d finally see the WY corp. get its cummupance after so many years.

  6. by the way Jon, when I was driving around on wednesday I saw a silver zx3 just like yours…and the stock side markers ARE orange, so yours are definetly aftermarket. I think on light colored cars the orange side markers look out of place, so clear ones look much better, …so good deal.

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