Massive Netflix #2

Massive Netflix Post The Second.


Poseidon - aka Das Love Boot, 'cause it's directed by Wolfgang Petersen, tee hee...
Hey look! A mostly pointless remake! So there's this boat, you see, and it gets hit by a big-ass wave and winds up upside
down. The boat looks like a floating apartment complex, not much style at all. The Queen Elizabeth 2 looks hella lot more
stylish when compared to the Poseidon. So anyway, a few people decide to not wait around in the main ballroom to be rescued
and head for the bottom (now the top) of the boat and escape. Death-defying highjinks ensue. Thank god Kurt Russell is there!
Not recommended for people afraid of water, tight spaces, and open flames. The movie is kinda "heh".

Mission: Impossible III - boy, that villain sure looks familiar. Where have I seen him before?
Holy crap, it's Truman Capote! Well, the guy who played Capote in "Capote". He looks taller in this film.
Mission: Impossible The Third. What can I say? I still think that the only reason Tom Cruise revived the M:I franchise
was because he was never going to be James Bond, so this is how he copes. I remember the TV show featuring complex ops
requiring actual teamwork between several IMF agents, not just one spotlight-hogging super-agent.
There's actually some of that in M:I-III, more than in M:I-II. Also, the brain explosive is actually pretty damn scary.
Anyway, big-budget action explodey thingy, you know the drill.

Yellowbeard - starring an awful lot of dead people, which I find depressing.
This comedic little British pirate romp was made in 1983 and most of the cast is now dead.
Marty Feldman, Peter Cook, James Mason, Graham Chapman, Michael Hordern, Madeline Kahn and Spike Milligan.
And as of yesterday, you can add Peter Boyle to the list. Tommy Chong is still alive, but his career sure isn't.
The film itself is fun in a slapstick sort of way. Graham Chapman plays the unstoppable vicious bloodthristy piratey
pirate Yellowbeard, with gusto and then some. The guy is a complete psycho! Madeline Kahn plays Mrs. Beard, his wife.
Before he was put away in prison for 20 years, he raped her and this resulted in a 20 year-old gardener son.
Yellowbeard wasn't expected to survive his incarceration, so he gets an extra 140 years, just to make sure.
He busts out and goes looking for his treasure map. And the race is on!
Eric Idle plays an admiral bent on retrieving Yellowbeard's treasure, and his aide of little brain is played by none other
than "Neil", the long-haired hippy bloke from the painfully funny punk British show of yore: "The Young Ones".
Cheech and Chong play El Segundo and El Nebuloso, the former being the latter's right-hand man, both of them Spanish guys.
Some cute young thing plays El Nebuloso's daughter. There are boobies in this film, but not hers, sadly.
John Cleese plays the tall blind informer with very keen hearing. Peter Boyle is "Mr. Moon", who betrayed Yellowbeard
and wants the treasure for himself. Marty Feldman is his sidekick. Peter Cooke is Yellowbeard's son's adoptive father,
an English lord with a pleasant demeanor and luxurious manor, though he appears perpetually slightly drunk.
It's not a bad little film and it has its moments.
Personally, I would like to see the studio get off its ass and actually release "The Last Remake Of Beau Geste" on DVD.
I don't want to have to buy it on laserdisc, for cryin' out loud!!
It's a funnier movie, without Python output, and I'd like to see it again.

Sky Fighters - which turned out to not be a movie version of the French "Tanguy Et Laverdure" comics.
The original French title of this film is "Les Chevaliers Du Ciel", aka "The Knights Of The Sky".
"Sky Fighters" is a terrible title and it makes it sound like a budget air combat game. The DVD even looks like a game disk!
This is a surprisingly gritty and action-filled French jet fighter thriller that makes "Stealth" look like the typical
brainless escapist piece of crap it is. The action kicks off when a new generation Mirage fighter scheduled to do a demo
flight is stolen from the Farnborough Air Show. A pair of French Air Force Mirages are sent to intercept the plane and
bring it back. At the controls are Captain Marchelli and his wingman, Captain Vallois. The rogue Mirage hides under an
Airbus 340 to spoof radar but our French jet jockeys see him and confront him. The rogue Mirage gets on Vallois' six and
locks on to him. Marchelli has no choice: he shoots down the rogue Mirage before he can splash his wingman.
The two catch hell for this and are taken off flight status. Marchelli is convinced he did the right thing. He reviews
camera footage from his plane and sees that one of the missiles on the rogue Mirage was just about to launch when he shot
him down with his gun. At the hearing, the same footage is shown, altered to remove the smoke plume from the missile.
Something's going on here! The plot takes many twists and turns from that point on. It's actually pretty good.
The film offers a glimpse at how the French do the whole jet fighter thing. Not much in the way of "Top Gun" cheesiness.
The sibling and I watched this in the original French, so we can't comment on the English dubbing.
One thing about the movie that's worth seeing is the aerial photography. It's done entirely live with real planes. No CGI.
All the action was filmed with a special camera pod strapped to a chase Mirage fighter, and some of the shots totally
blow "Top Gun" and "Stealth" away. If you love seeing jets in action, YOU MUST RENT THIS! NOW!!

Supergirl - this is why Peter O'Toole was drunk in all his movies from the '80s.
This only became available on DVD recently, along with new versions of the 2nd, 3rd and 4th Superman films, as well as
"Superman Returns", and the Richard Donner cut of "Superman II" (which I'm still trying to get. Curse you Netflix!).
I had heard stories: "it sucks", "it's really bad", "c'est de la merde", "Ist ein grosse scheisse".
And you know what? They were right. It's REALLY BAD.
The opening sequence looks like some weird-ass "Barbarella" meets Ancient Rome acid trip, then it all goes downhill from
there. Peter O'Toole borrows the McGuffin Of Supa Power (the Omegahedron) and it goes rogue and some blond chick gets into
a space egg ("Nanoo nanoo!") and goes after it, and she crosses dimensions and follows it to Earth and she splashdowns into
a lake and emerges from it wearing the Supergirl uniform. How? Why? Logic won't help you here, my friend!!
She blends into the local private school, which happens to arbor Lois Lane's sister or cousin or whatever.
The McGuffin is recovered by some self-styled witch with an '83 Cadillac Seville (the ugly boxy kind).
So basically, the McGuffin boosts the evil witch's powers, though actually, come to think of it, she had no powers to speak of.
So the McGuffin gives her powers she didn't have at all. This isn't really a sci-fi film, there's way too much magic in it.
Faye Dunaway plays the evil witch. No, really. Jimmy Olsen appears, and he's played by the same kid who played him in the
Superman films. Peter Cooke is also in this film, bringing up the total number of English Peters to "2".
Supergirl is played by Helen Slater. The director is played by hard-to-pronounce French guy Jeannot Szwarc, who thankfully
went back to directing episodes of TV shows like "JAG", "The Practice", "Without A Trace" and "Smallville".
This movie is tailor-made for Joel/Mike And The 'Bots. 'Nuff said.

My Super Ex-Girlfriend - which turned out to be funnier than I expected.
It's a romantic comedy, with a twist! Uma Thurman plays a geek! She happens to be superheroine G-Girl, but she's a geek!
She doesn't really know how relationships and love work, she's socially inept! Like many geeks. It's really funny.
She loses the guy she loves by being neurotic, needy and controlling, so she gets even in various super-ways.
Like, for example, and it's in the trailer, throwing a live (though CGI-ed) shark at her ex.
Bonus points for having Eddie Izzard has the supervillain. Evil genius. Whatever.
So yeah, it's a fun rental.

(no subject)

Time for a catch-up post!
This one shouldn't be too long, I had the past week off and spent a lot of time sleeping and watching movies.

So last week, on Monday, I went to USC to retrieve the sibling and take him home.
Tuesday, mostly stayed home and took care of the brother. The roommate left for Hawaii on vacation. Woo hoo!!
Wednesday, went to the DMV and was finished surprisingly fast. I had time to waste before my doctor's appointment,
so I took a sidetrip to Toys'R'Us to see what hadn't flown off the shelves yet. The Lego section was half-empty, but it
did feature some new 2007 sets. None of them were Star Wars-related though. I bought myself a small Aquaraiders set
(Attack Of The Giant Lobster!) so I would have at least one new toy for Christmas. I haven't built it yet.
I also snagged a couple of 2007 Hot Wheels: a bitchin' '69 Mustang, and a wicked dragster with stowable wheelie bar.
I got back just in time to keep my doc-app. He checked me out and said my persistent cough was the flu.
He prescribed syrup and antibiotics, then had my blood drawn for analysis. I go back first week of January for the results.
Thursday, I don't remember much. I brought my work latop home, and DJ Bro used it work on his book. This would continue for
the rest of the week and into the following week. Actually, it might continue for a while. He has a lot of work to do on it.

Friday was fun. Comrade Alexandrei dagoski and babushka, urrr, I mean wife came by to visit and take us to lunch.
I knew the comrade only from LJ and this was our first time meeting face-to-face.
"What kind of people are they?" asked the sibling. "Smart and interesting," I replied. Little did I know...
After discussing various options, we all decided on Chipotle in Marina Del Rey.
The comrade needed some good Mexican-style food and had never been there. They were in town to visit the comrade's parent.
They currently live in Philadelphia and I asked the comrade how the Mexican food was like over there: "It's really bad."
He grew up in L.A., so I knew he liked his Mexican food. :)
The weather was sunny and nippy and windy as we arrived in Marina Del Rey. Typical L.A. winter weather.
The comrade dropped us off at the Chipotle and boldly went to find a damn parking spot (it was pretty crowded).
He returned victorious and we went in to get food. DJ Bro gave me his order and held a table for us.
We ate and chatted, getting to know each other better, and making the occasional yummy sounds. The comrade's wife made
hissing noises whenever I suggested she try the (incredibly GOOD) guacamole. I finally caught on the 3rd time. :D
Pascal and I found out how "smart and interesting" our lunch companions were. The comrade is a physicist by trade,
currently working on hush-hush computer library linguistics stuff. His wife is going for her PhD in parasites and is also
a genetic engineer. "She tampers in God's domain," said the comrade, beaming proudly. Oh boy!!!
"Your friends are scientists," murmured the sibling, apparently impressed.
Everyone enjoyed the heck out of the food. We hadn't been at Chipotle in a while, and this location is one of the best.
Our meal concluded, we piled into the comrade's rental (a suprisingly roomy Chevy Malibu 4-door) and headed home.
We said our goodbyes, then flopped on the futon in a post-food coma...

Saturday, I went to the PO Box and found some interesting things. There was some Christmas help from "un ami Allemand".
And an unexpected, heavy and flat package from an old GEnie Beastie Board and Japan RT friend: Mr. Pandaphil.
I thought it was a framed picture at first, but further groping of the package revealed that it was a hardcover book.
I tucked the package under my arm and went to Trader Joe's to foodshop for the next few days. I picked up a nice big piece
of Santa Maria Bottom Beef Sirloin Roast for the X-Mas Eve dinner. The sibling wanted BEEF!! and BEEF!! I got us!
Once home, I opened Pandaboy's package and discovered, to my surprize, "The Complete Book Of Japanese Cooking".
Pascal grabbed it and looked for the section on sushi. Nothing good can come of this... :D
Sunday, I went to Vons to buy water, orange juice, and a 12-pack of 7-Up (the sibling has a new addiction).
We cooked up the roast, and I made garlic mash taters. DJ Bro made a salad (his specialty). It was all very tasty.

Monday of this week, Christmas Day, I got a phone call from hatch, who was in Michigan visiting his folks.
It's funny, I keep meeting more Michigan natives. First Hatch, then Spino's Sweetie, and now Dagoski's wife.
Hatch is so out of touch out there in Misery that he didn't know BT had a new album! He should post more often. :)
The sibling wanted to go to the storage unit to get some of his research material, but we wound up not going.
Instead, we watched some movie, then he worked on his book some more.
Tuesday (yesterday), we went to the storage unit and spent over two hours moving stuff around, looking for all his books.
Blargh. I can't wait to get a 2-bedroom apartment so we can empty this goddamned thing and put the rent money to better use.
Especially when I got locked out after using the bathroom. Good thing DJ Bro was inside to let me back in.
And now it's Wednesday and I'm back at work. The office feels a little empty, looks like many people took this week off.
I'm working today, tomorrow and Friday. I'm off this weekend and Monday. I think we also get Tuesday off, but I must check.
I'm glad to be back at work. I need the routine to center myself. And I get time away from the sibling.
If you have brothers and sisters, you understand, especially if they're not like you.

So anyway, I hope y'all had a nice Christmas, and I wish your New Year plans all go off without hitch.

Too cool not to share:

"He is made of liquid metal."


("Fantastic Four 2" trailer, starring the Herald of Galactus, 15meg, Quicktime)

(Link courtesy of trailer_spot, the hardest-working trailer hunter in show business!)