John Carter (of Mars)

Some of you are probably asking why I put "of Mars" in parenthesis. Well, for starters, when I saw the trailer and everything that went into it, I thought a title like John Carter was a bit underwhelming. And then I found out that it's based off a book called John Carter or Mars, which I think is much more fitting, considering that this takes place on Mars, and is all about the planet Mars and all of the life forms that are on it that we have apparently been missing all these years. But I digress. What did I think of the movie? Thats a good question, because I'm not entirely sure. Some parts of it were good, others were just okay. For example, I thought the effects were good, I thought the story was interesting, the lore of this planet, which they call Barsuhm, or something like that, was pretty cool, and a lot of the creatures that lived there were cool. I've heard that this book helped inspire George Lucas when he was first writing the original Star Wars, and I can see why, there were a lot of moments where I said "wow, that's a lot like Star Wars". Okay, now onto what I didn't like. Being that this is a film that relied very heavily on CGI, you can already guess that some of the human acting was not as good as it could have been. Some actors were pretty good, like that one Irish actor who shows up in everything, but for the life of me, I have no idea what his name is. He was Mr Daily in Woman in Black, one of the men being investigated in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, he played Dumbledore's brother in the last Harry Potter movie, Ceasar in Rome and the Russian president in The Sum of all Fears. Do you know who he is? Yeah. Do you know his name? If you do, please be so kind as to leave it in the comments below. Forgive me, I digress. The other thing that I didn't care for was the fact that while some of the lore was cool, there were times where I felt like they were spoon feeding it to me with a shovel. It made it kind of convoluted and a little hard to follow, and fell into the same trap that all of the Pirates sequels fell into. Also, I have to say that some of the casting kind of irked me. For example the main villain was that one guy from 300 who was bribed by the Persians. I'm guessing whoever directed this said "You were a bad guy in that? Alright, we'll cast you". I thought he was kind of bland and not all that interesting. As for the real villains, they are led by a guy who I think is played by Mark Strong, who is one of those people who has shown talent in other movies, but just keeps on getting really bland roles. I thought he was pretty good in Sherlock Holmes and was great in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. But everything else I've seen him in, he's just playing your typical villain. I mean, sure he has a creepy face and haunting voice, but seriously, do more with this guy, give him a part with more substance.

Okay, all that aside, this is a well made movie that I can see perhaps getting a cult following. Now I generally love cult movies, being that Memento, Bladerunner and The Big Lebowski are some of my favorite movies. This one, I'm gonna have to pass on however, because there were no moments that wowed me the way I think they were hoping.

Final Grade: C+

Happy Birthday Christopher Walken!

Bitch please

Christopher motherfucking Walken. What can I say about this guy? Well, not a whole lot. Mostly because words can't really describe him. His strangeness transcends human understanding. What I can say for sure is that I'm pretty sure this is a guy who doesn't give a damn what you think about him. He can act the same way in 2 completely different movies, and you can either see it as scary as shit or funny as hell. He has made some of the best movies ever and has been in some of the funniest SNL skits in the show's history, most notably of course being The Continental and The Cowbell. And something else that not a lot of people know is that he actually got his start taming lions. Actually, I don't think he tamed them, I bet he just stared at them (like in the picture above) and the king of the beasts would instantly turn into little pussycats submitting to his will. Whenever I talk about celebrities that are strange or creepy like this, I usually accredit it to a head injury or drug addiction. With Mr Walken however, I don't know what happened to him. I'll just categorize this under "Abduction by aliens". At least that's what it'll be until he dies and we get to dissect his brain. Whether you love him or hate him, there is no denying that there is nobody like Christopher Walken. Happy... 69th... Birthday... Mr Walken.

More Thoughts on Wrath of the Titans

You know what this movie is like? This is like the original Conan movie with Arnold. For those of you who don't know, the original Conan movie is one of those classic examples of being "classically bad". It's corny as hell, but there are parts of it that are enjoyable, and has a good cast. For Conan, it had Arnold playing the hero, Max Von Sydow as the wise old king and James Earl Jones as the ruthless villain. In Wrath of the Titans, you have a similar deal where Sam Worthington is the hero, but then you got Liam Neeson doing what he does best which is the wise old father-figure and Ralph Fiennes doing what he does best which is the villain. So is it cheesy? Most definitely yes, but will you regret seeing it? Well I didn't, and neither did my friends, and if you go into this movie like we did, you will definitely enjoy it. The 3D is one of the better examples I've seen in recent years, the action is cool, and the absence of greek gods that only helped in damning the first movie are actually made up for in this one. And when you do see the titans themselves they are pretty dang cool, and are very much what I imagined they would look like when I was learning about this stuff in school.

So, what is my final grade?

B- because I feel generous. Again, it was bad, and left a lot of room for accidental jokes, but it had it's redeemable parts that did make for an enjoyable experience

Wrath of the Titans

What can I say about this movie? Well for one, I'm just going to come out and say that I enjoyed this movie. No matter what I say throughout the rest of this review, know that I did in fact, enjoy it... But not in the way you would think. I went to see this movie at the midnight showing last night with 2 friends, and something that we all realized really quick is that this is a movie you could just sit back, turn your brain off and enjoy... But if you REALLY wanted to enjoy it, you would need to dial down your maturity level to that of an 8th grade boy. We did that and this may have been one of the most enjoyable movie experiences that I've had in a long time. While the movie was enjoyable and had some cool fight scenes, we just couldn't get past the fact that this movie's script was chock full of accidental innuendos and left room for a lot of jokes from the audience. What could have been just another action flick quickly turned into our very own Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode. If I had to describe this script, it would be like this: The first part of the script was written by a straight, desperate single dude who wanted nothing more than to see Rosamund Pike (who plays the warrior queen Andromeda) do an ancient greek lesbian scene. To be fair though, when you see her in the warrior queen costume, you instantly want to say "Hey, I'll let you handle my sword if you know what I mean" (see, even as I'm writing this, I can't help it). The second part (or at least the last 20 minutes) was written by a gay guy (or a desperate woman) who wanted nothing more than to see Ralph Fiennes and Liam Neeson do a gay scene together. The problem is that the first part's innuendos were ALOT more subtle than the ones in the last part. In fact, I don't even think the person writing the second half was even trying to hide it, they were just hoping that the actors would get aroused by the dialogue and just go at it. On top of the jokes about the innuendos, there were many other aspects of the movie that were almost begging to be made fun of. Most notably, Sam Worthington's mullet. Look, I understand that the mullet is probably what his hair would have looked like... but it was just too damn ridiculous to look at that I couldn't help but laugh at it. To give you an idea as to how much we were laughing and joking during this movie, here's a summary of our experience: There were (at maximum) about 10 other people in the theater with us when we saw this, and they are probably telling their friends right now that "The movie was enjoyable... but there were these 3 drunk assholes who were just laughing the whole time" I promise you, we were in fact, sober. But I can't help but wonder what would this movie be like if we were drunk... Hmmm. Like I said, for the first part, it was a lot more subtle, and we had to come up with some of the jokes ourselves. But then I think something happened. I think the script spoke to us and said "You have done well, now let me take it from here" because from that moment on, all you needed was 8th grade status maturity and the job was done.

All kidding aside, this was a fun movie. I don't regret seeing it, and the 3D, which was utter crap in the first movie, was actually kind of cool in this one. Though I will warn you all right now that the 3D doesn't kick in until about 5 minutes into the actual movie. For a while, we thought that we had walked into the wrong theater and were about to leave, so if you decide to see this in 3D, just be aware of that.

In Memoriam, a look back at pop culture deaths 2011-2012

Something that I have noticed is that in the past year alone, I have seen more shocking deaths on TV than most of the past years combined. And no, I'm not talking about just deaths, I'm talking about a character dying and you say "What the hell?" And today, we're paying our respects to all those that gave their lives and careers for the sake of the survival of the show. And I won't be covering EVERY death that has happened in the last year, just the ones that had the biggest impact on myself. And before you ask, yes, there are going to be spoilers in this review. I find it unnecessary that I have to say that, but yes, there will indeed be spoilers. You have been warned.

Game of Thrones

Eddard "Ned" Stark, Lord of Winterfell, Warden of the North, Hand of the King, and loyal servant of Robert Baratheon the first of his name.
Death- Season 1, Episode 9 "Baelor"
Cause of death- publicly executed at the behest of a 12 year old twirp
We pray for your soul

Robert Baratheon, King of the Seven Kingdoms, Guardian of the Realm

Death- Season 1, Episode 7 "You Win or You Die"

Fatally wounded by a bore while hunting

We pray for your soul

Viserys Targaryen, self proclaimed "The Dragon" and true king of the seven kingdoms
Death- Season 1, Episode 5 "A Golden Crown"
Had molten gold dumped on head
We pray for your soul... to rot in hell.

Khal Drogo, The Great Khal
Death- Season 1, Episode 10 "Fire and Blood"
Smothered by wife as a mercy kill after being put in a vegetive state (it's a long story)
We pray for your soul

The Walking Dead


Dale Horvath
Death- Season 2, Episode 10 "Judge, Jury and Executioner"
Fatally wounded by a walker, mercy killed by friend Daryl
We pray for your soul

Sophia Peletier
Death- Season 2, Episode 7 "Pretty Much Dead Already"
Infected by a walker, and later shot in face by Rick Grimes after becoming a walker herself.
We pray for your soul

Otis

Death - Season 2, Episode 3 "Bloodletting"

Shot in the knee by Shane, left behind to be devoured by walkers

We pray for your soul

Shane Walsh

Death- Season 2, Episode 12 "Better Angels"

Stabbed by Rick Grimes after trying to kill him, then shot in head by Carl Grimes after turning into walker

I would pray for your soul, but you don't have one. Dick.

Boardwalk Empire

Jimmy Darmody

Death- Season 2, Episode 12 "To the Lost"

Shot in the face by Nucky Thompson

We pray for your soul

Angela Darmody

Death- Season 2, Episode 11 "Under God's Power she Flourishes"

Shot by Manny Horvitz

We pray for your soul

Batman: Arkham City

Hugo Strange

Stabbed and then blown to tiny bits

We pray for your soul

Ra's Al Ghul

Stabbed self while falling, impaled on an iron fence

We pray for your soul

Talia Al Ghul

Shot by the Joker

We pray for your soul

The Joker

Killed by infection caused by copious amounts of Titan in his blood stream.

Rest in peace you magnificent sadistic bastard! P.S- I still haven't gotten over this one.

The Matrix Trilogy

I’m just going to get this out of the way, I am going to say what everybody else has said: The first one is great and the other 2 are crap. Well, maybe I’m too hasty. The other 2 aren’t crap, but they aren’t as good as they could have been. The first movie was awesome. It had a cool idea, some cool action and it was an all around pretty cool film. And to be honest, I’m not sure why they decided to make more. The first one ended in a way that didn’t really suggest or warrant a sequel. Maybe if you wanted to do the story of another person who was woken up from the matrix and they just showed us what it is like for a normal person to live outside the matrix, that would be a pretty interesting movie. But unsurprisingly, and I can’t say that I blame them, the directors of the movie decided to add onto Neo’s story. And yeah, I will say that the second and third movies aren’t all that good, but they still aren’t that terrible either. For one thing, like the first one, they have some interesting ideas to them as well as some cool action. However they also added some things to them that are kind of silly. For one thing, I don’t think it was very wise to bring back Agent Smith the way they did. Don’t get me wrong, I love Hugo Weaving, and I thought he was a great villain in the first movie. But I just thought that the idea of him coming back and trying to clone himself was just a little silly, if they just had Agent Smith come back and do his own thing and reek havoc on the matrix, that would be cool. Which is what they did, but the whole thing about him cloning himself was just a little cooky in my opinion. Maybe I’m alone on that, but it’s just a little strange to me. So you are probably asking “Who would make a better villain than Agent Smith?” Well, to be honest, I thought the French guy, The Merovingian, would have sufficed. Sure, I don’t think he was on the Agent Smith level of epicness, but he would have been enough to hold the movie.

The second thing that I have a slight problem with is Neo’s powers. Actually, it’s just one: Flying. Again, like Smith’s cloning ability, I just found it a little silly, and the effects that we saw when he used it were kind of cheesy. It didn’t look like it was something real, it looked like something out of Shrek. I don’t mind using CGI, but when it looks like a cartoon instead of an actual live-action movie, I really have to put my foot down.

And finally, I’m going to address the one thing that people have said in defense of the last two movies: They are just cool action movies. That may be true, but that isn’t why we all liked the first movie. The first movie was deep, perplexing, philosophical and thought-provoking. The second and third one were, according to fans, action movies. But again, the fact that they are thought of as just being ‘action movies’ is so out of place. It would be as if they made a sequel to Inception and just made a popcorn movie. I would find this excusable if we all just thought of the first movie as nothing more than an action movie. Alright, fine they did have a whole explanation as to what the whole prophecy about the one was, but that was a little too thought provoking, to the point of being confusing. Seriously, I have tried to understand everything that the Architect said in the second movie, and it still doesn’t make that much sense. I even looked it up on imdb and Wikipedia and I’m still a little hazy. I guess what they were trying to do was one-up themselves from the first movie, and they may have tried taking it a little too far. And the ending to the third movie altogether makes no sense at all. Even a friend of mine who is a huge fan of these movies admits that he doesn’t get it either.

Having said all that, my opinion with these movies is much like my opinion with the second and third Jurassic Park movies. Yeah, they have their issues, but they at least still have a few things that were good about the first movie. Were they far from perfect? Oh yes they were, but the fighting is still cool (at least when it doesn’t look like a cartoon it does), Hugo Weaving is still cool, and I think that the only issue that these movies suffer from is what I think a few of the Pirates of the Caribbean sequels suffer from, the fact that they have some neat ideas, each of them would be cool on their own and could potentially have enough substance to fill up an entire movie, but the filmmakers tried to squish them all into one movie (or I guess two) and it just feels cluttered, the plot is a little too convoluted, and in the end, we still have no idea what is going on.

The Walking Dead

If this show had started about 5 years ago, I don't think I would have been into it. Zombies and horror were never really my thing in high school. But after about 5 years of reading Stephen King, playing Left 4 Dead and watching movies like Shaun of the Dead and Zombieland, the television show The Walking Dead had my name written all over it. Fans of the show will tell you that the first season was pretty damn good, with the exception of maybe two episodes, and this season, while not AS good as the first, is still pretty darn good. So you are probably asking yourself "MP, if you love this show so much, why are you talking about it now as opposed to earlier?" Well for one thing, I was going to write something after the season ended, but after last night's episode, I feel as if I can't wait any longer, I need to talk about this season, even though there is still one more episode left. First of all, I will tell you that I'm going to try to keep this as spoiler free as possible, but given the stuff that has gone down this season, this is going to be easier said than done. Last season, we saw 3 characters kick the bucket. 2 of them were somewhat major and the other was one we had just met the episode before. While their deaths were heavy, it doesn't nearly compare to the shit that we have seen on this most current season. I won't spoil who, but I will tell you that 3 of the major characters die in this season, one of them was a shock, one of them was just downright sad, and the last one... Well, I'm not gonna lie, I was actually glad. I had really grown to dislike that character in this season. And considering that the last episode of this season looks like it is just going to be the group trying to defend themselves against a massive zombie horde, I would say that it isn't unreasonable to say one more person will die. Most people would say that killing off this many characters this early in the show's running is not a good sign, showing that the writers are already running out of ideas. But I say nay, I think this is a good thing. Just like Game of Thrones, you have to approach the show with that mentality that everybody is expendable. This is not one of those shows where people can just resolve their differences and move on, people will and have died. Even the author of the books that the show is based on has said that he will kill off whomever he pleases. Having said that, some may say that the show is loosing steam, but I say it's just getting started. Brace yourselves.