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Reviews
The Thirteenth Floor (1999)
Before there was INCEPTION....
This movie has been over reviewed on these IMDb pages, and under- appreciated.
It predates INCEPTION by a decade, but has just as many twists turns and right-on CGI--and 1/10th the budget, and the acting has none of the pretense.
This is a classic that won't be appreciated until folks make that INCEPTION connection.
Layered worlds are analogous, but the ending here, has much more punch.
The music is just right, with a "Matrix" kind of symphonic impact.
It deserves more than a second look.
A Nymphoid Barbarian in Dinosaur Hell (1990)
OK. NOBODY Seems to Get Troma Productions, I'll help
OK. What would happen, if Roger Corman, who directed produced and wrote all those nickel dime horror movies, like "The Terror" which was made with left over film and three days left in Boris Karloff's contract for another movie, the movie in which Jack Nicholson plays opposite his wife of the time and ad libbed many of his scenes and lines--WHAT IF--Roger Corman "married" Saturday Night Live.
You get shlocky trash, you get unknown actors, you get dumb cartoon characterizations shot on the cheap for nickels and dimes--canned and sometimes original linear productions, first act second act third act straight action with a hint of sex ( and little more than a hint ).
You'd get the eighties substitute for the chapter serial of the forties, an hour and a half of utter dreck with nothing more than Ed Wood appeal.
But.
That's the idea. What's interesting is how they put this crap together, and you get to watch.
I like stuff like this. $15K worth of technology you could shoot a better movie today.
Which is the point.
So.
Why don't you? And just sit box with a huge box of jujubees you got at RiteAid, or maybe chips unending with hot sauce you'd pay five bucks for, and kick back with an idiot movie you don't need to have a Master's in English lit to comprehend and hoot the villain.
Get it?
Warehouse 13 (2009)
Too Cutesy for Adult Entertainment
Rubinek is too fine an actor, with an excellent edge for this kind of 12 year old aimed, almost slapstick direction. The shows have creativity and could be a lot edgier without the "Man From Uncle" attitude, it's just unwatchable by anyone over the age of puberty.
That in fact, may be its audience, I have no problem with that. Until this season, I found Fringe going in too adolescent a direction also. But this is unbearable, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea monster of the week, with NONE of the darkness of Friday the 13th which was much more interesting, although now 20 years old, and also chased artifacts stored in a warehouse of sorts.
I miss those shows, I thought we were on our way here, I was wrong, and remain disappointed as an adult. For those targeted, enjoy.
Fringe (2008)
More Edge Required, the Pilot Atmosphere Needs Revisitation
There is some redeeming social value second season, but I am taking a wait and see attitude. For starters, there was so much failed promise in this series--Walter Bishop played by Noble in the pilot had a madman's edge that disappeared in cutesy funky remarks that threw me back to 60's Ivan Tors Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea drivel. He REALLY had that Hanibal Lector thing going, and I was HOOKED and riveted by the promise of menace and creatively used for the rest of the series. When that disappeared entirely I was just crestfallen. There was a real shot at anti hero here, and it fell into the toilet.
I really got to be disappointed by the rest of this annoying cast. Walter's son character mouthed "Gee Daddy you're strange" type dialogue EVERY episode, every cutesy remark mumbled by this formerly menacing Dad scientist character made you want to puke. The love affair between Tove's character and the dead "maybe bad guy" lead, was REALLY great, and looked like it was going somewhere, and went absolutely NOWHERE. (I hope for Sci-fi's sake Abrams gets more resolution in "LOST" writers or he flashes in the pan after looking like Hitchcock's heir apparent.) Abrams did such a novel job with "LOST" I guess I am spoiled for new edge premises and interesting writing, THIS isn't THAT. The Lab Tech they've acquired is a totally worthless character rivaled by the cow in the stall in the background. WHAT was Abrams thinking? The second season is different, it seems more in your face. I'm waiting for the moment Bishop goes all psycho on Bell, from scratch and claw to round house kick, but what I am afraid is going to happen is, they'll continue to paint Daddy in this all white bright light of goodness, and we've lost Hannibal forever.
Let's see what happens season II. They didn't give Whelan a chance either with Firefly, but are doing Dollhouse justice by giving that director his lead. Abrams needs to do something as promising as that pilot portended, maybe season 2 will do better.
There's always hope.
Lost (2004)
My View of LOST's BackStory: May Contain Guessed Spoilers
100 hours allows not only character development, but full fledged fleshing out of what Hitchcock referred to as the McGuffin, the premise or back-story of the show.
The HANSO Corporation is a 70's R&D shop experimenting with either TRANSPORTERS or TIME TRAVEL, having been steeped in the family lore of an island with special properties, about which a 400 year old journal will reveal to rich Mr. Widmore, Penny's Dad, possibilities for profit. The founders of HANSO are descendants of sailors on that ship, the Black Rock, which crossed a kind of Bermuda triangle some 400 years before and wound up on this Pacific island whose center is either magnetically bound in a warped time zone, or, the end of a wormhole.
While pursuing experimentation via a multi layered protocol called the DHARMA initiative, HANSO unfortunately frees up some of the island's magnetic field, which is encapsulated under PEARL station, one of six on the island devoted to the original HANSO experiments. Pressure from the magnetic field must be relieved every 108 minutes, or the island might explode. Desmond misses his count, the field explodes, and just may have taken Oceanic Flight 815 down with it. Or, the device HANSO was developing, Transporter or Time Traveling Device, was aimed at the plane and broke the plane up as result of instability of the island at the end of this wormhole.
The island has properties, and/or the transporter device distorts time as a "glitch". Locke finds himself as he was before being paralyzed because the device, after time travel or transport, restores him via a photo-shop element that corrects "dropout", the decay that occurs after each travel event. Jack's Dad is alive because this program filled in that blank. Rose is cured, Charlie is also, alive in a prestate, after his death in this time. Some of the "others" don't age. Amazingly, they have memory and are self aware of their "real" state even though paralysis, death have been overcome. The entire group of survivors, may be in altered time, one to the other.
Ben has hired Sayid to kill HANSO execs, because he believes the future can be altered catastrophically. Faraday is wrong when he thinks only consciousness can travel time. He is moving bodies, and that is what Ben fears, violation of the "prime directive"--do not interfere with the past.
On LOST.
Cat-Women of the Moon (1953)
Is that Charles Bronson Doing the Beginning Narration?
First, I'll swear that it is Charles Bronson doing an uncredited narration in the beginning of this movie, right down to the rolling S's, or Phipps with a nose cold.
Well. Such shlock as this became a haven for a bunch of actors now relegated to C movie productions, some of whom didn't deserve that kind of fate. Fowley and Jory were the Western villains you loved to hate, Tufts was a pretty boy up and comer of the forties, you get the drift.
Moving right along, don't view this as a movie as much as a time capsule of the fifties, when all girls were either good or bad femme fetales, and male dominance was, well, the macho joke it now shows itself to be.
As such, it is right up there with Plan 9 of Outer Space and way below Destination Moon. It is not a bad place to be. Even the bad parts are fun, so, don't take this one to heart. Just kick back with a Bag of M and M's plain, and enjoy.
For the record, it didn't even get to the mainstream showplaces of the late fifties, like Zacherley or Shock Theatre.
Mr. Lucky (1943)
Mr. Lucky DVD exists BUT you need Region 2/Universal Player
Google the title and you get DVD availability for Mr. Lucky for Region 2 PAL players.
These days a PAL player, or a multi region and HD capable (Blu-Ray) players means you gotta buy a bunch of players.
Someday--one player size fits all but, I didn't want folks to think a DVD wasn't available on planet earth somewhere.
How good, the quality of sound and print, is to be determined.
Stayed tuned.
And I wish I didn't have to put in ten lines of commentary to make a simple notification of availability for DVD.