Starship Troopers [1997] Blu-Ray

I finished reading Joe Haldeman’s THE FOREVER WAR (great read) and it put me in the mood to watch STARSHIP TROOPERS – as I remember it being similar (if only because it involved war against aliens on other planets and sex).

I guess it had been long enough since I saw it that I didn’t remember the cheekiness of it all – the little commercials and how everyone was “perfect”. I think I honestly just remember it being a war, bug, boobie flick. Starship Troopers is a sci-fi war satire – it’s fun – but I’m not sure if it holds up enough for me.

I mean – how can you not be all over that chick, Dizzy (played by Dina Meyer), if she constantly fawns over you and Denise Richards (your "girlfriend") is constantly flirting with other guys? Is it the boobs? I guess he’s just out of high school or college – or whatever – and he hasn’t learned there’s more to life than great boobs... Aw... I think I just broke my own heart with that comment... With her dying breath – she thanked God that she was finally able to have sex with you for 20 minutes? I mean – c’mon!!!!! That out does boobs any day!

One thing I never ran into before was that my Blu-Ray player refused the disc – even though it looked perfect. It was an older release so I didn’t expect that I needed to update my firmware – as even with brand new releases I’ve never had to. So, I returned it to N’flix as defective and asked for a new one – and the new disc gave me the same grief.

A quickie Google search and I discovered that I needed to “add” more memory to my Blu-Ray player to get the disc to play! I’ve never heard of that!

I grabbed the podunk SD camera card that came with my camera (which I never unwrapped as I purchased a better card at the same time) – I slid that into my Blu-Ray player and the movie loaded up fine. That’s just weird to me.

The movie looked AMAZING! It’s a fantastic looking movie on Blu – if you love the movie – you will want to upgrade (or wait until the XXth anniversary release that is sure to come out). If you like the movie and want to watch it – rent it on Blu – it looks great.

The Thing [2011]

An alien spacecraft and creature are discovered under the Antarctic ice – they send a scientist down to meet with the established Norwegian research crew to discover what it could be. The creature – breaks loose and starts mimicking the humans – leaving everyone uncertain who is human and who is alien.

Usually, I leave the synopsis vague – but since this is a prequel to John Carpenter’s 1982 remake (of The Thing from Another World, 1951) – I think we all know what’s really going on. The ultimate question is – does it hold up to Carpenter’s remake – in a word: Yes.

Sure, the effects are updated a bit – given a nice computer upheaval for elements that simply would be too difficult to do without computers – but there also seemed to be plenty of analog effects that worked just as well as they did back in 1982.

The scares were plentiful – and I’m not sure if it was just the theater I was in – but my ears are ringing a bit from all the intense sound effects. The story stayed true to the 1982 version – and you want to stay and watch the ending credits sequence – and run home and pop in your copy of the 1982 version.

The direction was just what you needed in a horror film – going from intense calmness or lingering fear – to scare! The acting was fairly standard – though some of these Norwegian’s looked the same to me (I don’t mean it that way – don’t give me that look – NO not all Norwegian’s look the same – you know what I mean – sorry – okay). The questions in regards to who is a Thing is a fun one – I liked how they tried to get to that – and I liked how for the most part the pieces fit.

Here’s the thing (didn’t mean the pun) – if you haven’t seen the John Carpenter version – it’s ultimately more creepy to watch that one and not even bother with the prequel (though it’s a good horror film) – because the aftermath of everything that happens is shown in the very beginning of that film – and it’s almost always better to be left with that air of mystery with a horror film. Carpenter’s version is one of my favorite films of the 1980’s – it holds up very well – I recommend it if you haven’t seen it.

I do recommend this film – if you’re looking for a big screen scare this Halloween – especially if you enjoyed Carpenter’s version and would liked to have a few questions answered. It’s a good film and it stands alone by itself – it encapsulates its very own story. I’m not going to tell you it’s creative – because it’s a retread of a lot of the ideas from the Carpenter version – but it entertains and doesn’t insult you and that’s just as good.

[SPOILER – there’s a Thing in this room!]

Battle Los Angeles [2011]

Essentially, BLACK HAWK DOWN meets an alien invasion. We follow a group of marines into the war zone - to rescue refugees hiding in a police station before Santa Monica is bombed to stop the alien invasion.

It was pretty good – though some of the action was incomprehensible because of the shaky cam – but you’ve got to use the camera to do that in modern intense war movies these days (I guess). I wish they would use camera angles and lighting to create that suspense rather than shake the camera all around leaving the audience more confused and disoriented than the marines. The smoke from the city burning was good enough to create tension and confusion with the audience – the shaking of the camera was just unneeded cheap tricks.

Aaron Eckhart was excellent in the “I’m one day from retirement” marine role and his subplot was interesting – lent enough depth to his role. The rest of the cast did their job – by staying in formation, shooting, panting, running, dying and stuff – standard stuff – don’t need to be an acting genius in a film like this. The action that you could make out was great – the aliens were interesting, there were some stunning visuals of the destruction of Los Angeles and I liked that the 24-hour news cycle was still going trying to fill in cracks with speculation about the invasion. Overall – it was fun – it wasn’t dumb – it was exactly what it advertised itself to be – a “get what you pay for” action war alien movie.

What I think I really liked - was there was so much noise and explosions happening in the background that they can take this one incident and expand it to be a franchise but different squads - different parts of town - different characters... Just show different aspects of the same attack.

Prey [1978]

Strange lights in the sky awaken Jessica from her sleep – she’s scared she runs to Jo – her lover in the next room – who is more than willing to calm her down. Anderson is making out with his girlfriend in the woods when he gets out to take a pee is attacked. The next morning Anderson shows up at Jessica & Jo’s country house looking dazed and acting concussed – they invite him to stay with them. But there’s something wrong with Anderson - he’s possessed by an alien!

This is an acting tour de force! Each character is so extremely messed up that you it brings up the obvious question – “who’s the real monster?”

Jessica is just too naïve to be believed – or are all Canadians like that? (ha ha – sorry guys) She obviously lost her parents in a sudden and traumatic way that allowed Jo to sweep in and “help” her by basically kidnapping her. Yet, she’s overly trusting of this strange man who literally wanders into their house – and she’s immediately drawn to him as a lover. Then again – Jessica is the only one who points out the strangeness of Anderson - how he never eats – or how his name is ANDERS ANDERSON!

Anders Anderson is obviously messed in the head to the point where I wouldn’t feel comfortable around him so why would two women living alone in the country feel comfortable around him beats me. He’s played very low key and withdrawn – yet has an extremely profound moment where the three of them are playing hide & seek and he tells Jessica that she’s a prisoner of Jo’s. I can see the importance of having Anderson deliver that particular line – but it’s so out of character that it’s just not believable.
Jo is comically militant. She belittles Anderson for being a male in so many annoying ways that she should’ve noticed right away that Anderson wasn’t reacting – and instead of Jessica pointing out Anderson’s oddities - it should’ve been Jo. She emasculates Anderson by dressing him up as a woman at a party after he does a very manly thing and saves the women from the fox (who was the patsy for Anderson’s blood lust). Yet, she awkwardly tries to kiss Anderson while they are dancing – which shows some cracks in Jo yet that doesn’t seem to affect her past that particular scene.

The directing of Norman J. Warren is standard in this film. There are only few highlights to his craft – namely the ending chase scene - along with the bizarre “drowning” scene (which is worth watching the film for). One reoccurring part of the film seemed like they kind of threw together some b-roll and a voice overdub to make up for a ‘nada scene’ – which is just poor directing.

The writing as I pointed out above doesn’t really add up. Motives of the characters are uncertain and character depth is never really given to each of them 3 main characters. I should also point out that the story is more of a series of odd events – than a full on plot. I do particularly like how the sex scenes are quite cynical and disturbing – it was a welcomed touch to go along with the extreme characters – so I’ll give kudos to the screenplay for that.

It was a fine movie that drew me in with it’s acting – yet not much further in than that.

S is for... [part 4]

With laughs and gross-outs aplenty, Slither is the best horror comedy since Shaun of the Dead. Having written for the jubilant trash-mongers at Troma Films before scripting 2004's well-received remake of Dawn of the Dead, writer-director James Gunn crafted this hilarious splatter-fest as an homage to the comically violent horror films of the 1970s and '80s, and he gets it just right with a low-budget look, perfect casting, grisly make-up effects and judicious use of CGI gore. The story's a deliberate monster-mash, borrowing from a dozen other movies with its plot about an invasion of slithery slug-like parasites from outer space, arriving (via meteorite) in the redneck town of Wheelsy, South Carolina, where they turn most of the local yokels into flesh-eating zombies. The first victim (played by Michael Rooker) turns into a squid-like, multi-tentacled host monster (kill him and you kill 'em all), and his terrified wife (Elizabeth Banks) teams up with Wheelsy's sheriff (Nathan Fillion, from Firefly and Serenity) and mayor (comedic scene-stealer Gregg Henry) to eradicate the alien threat before Wheelsy turns into Slugville. Gunn handles comedy and horror with exuberant flair, and Slither's greatest strength is that it never aspires to be anything more than it is: 96 minutes of good laughs and gruesomeness, served up with the kind of gleeful abandon that only true horror buffs can fully appreciate. (synopsis provided by Amazon.com)

released 2006

directed by James Gunn

P is for...

Sometimes a movie achieves such legendary status that it can't quite live up to its reputation. Plan 9 from Outer Space is not one of these movies. It is just as magnificently terrible as you've heard. Plan 9 is the story of space aliens who try to conquer the Earth through resurrection of the dead. Psychic Criswell narrates ("Future events such as these will affect you in the future!") as police rush through the cemetery, occasionally clipping the cardboard tombstones in their zeal to find the source of the mysterious goings-on. More than just a bad film, Plan 9 is something of a one- stop clearinghouse for poor cinematic techniques: The time shifts whimsically from midnight to afternoon sun, Tor Johnson flails desperately in an attempt to rise from his coffin, and flying saucers zoom past on clearly visible strings. Fading star Bela Lugosi tragically died during filming, but such a small hurdle could not stop writer-producer-director Ed Wood. Lugosi is ingeniously replaced with a man who holds a cape across his face and might as well have "NOT BELA LUGOSI" stamped on his forehead.Plan 9 is so sweetly well- intentioned in both its message and its execution that it's impossible not to love it. And if you don't, well, as Eros says, "You people of Earth are idiots!" (synopsis provided by Amazon.com)

directed by Edward Wood Jr.

released 1958

I is for... [part 2]

Something's wrong in the town of Santa Mira, California. At first, Dr. Miles Bennell (Kevin McCarthy) is unconcerned when the townsfolk accuse their loved ones of acting like emotionless imposters. But soon the evidence is overwhelming--Santa Mira has been invaded by alien "pods" that are capable of replicating humans and taking possession of their identities. It's up to McCarthy to spread the word of warning, battling the alien invasion at the risk of his own life. Considered one of the best science fiction films of the 1950s and '60s, this classic paranoid thriller was widely interpreted as a criticism of the McCarthy era (that's Senator Joseph, not actor Kevin), which was characterized by anticommunist witch-hunts and fear of the dreaded blacklist. Some hailed it as an attack on the oppressive power of government as Big Brother. However viewers interpret it, this original 1956 version ofInvaders of the Body Snatchers (based on Jack Finney's serialized novel The Body Snatchers) remains a milestone movie in its genre, directed by Don Siegel with an inventive intensity that continues to pack an entertaining wallop. Look closely and you'll find future director Sam Peckinpah (an uncredited cowriter of this film) making a cameo appearance as a meter reader!

directed by Don Siegel

released 1956