A new series called “Primeval” premiered on ITV1. Abhorrent script, ludicrous effects and abysmal acting set in some small suburbian town in England with a magnetic anomaly that allows dinosaurs from the past to enter Dean Forest and terrorize the clueless townsfolk. Seriously, cancel this show now…
Mel Gibson’s latest film “Apocalypto” (2006) is about a young man Jaguar Claw (Youngblood) who gets captured during a raid on his village. He is marched off with the rest of the survivors to the local temple to be sacrificed.
One thing first, this is not a documentary, so if you expect to see what the Mayan civilization was like then you best go grab some books on the topic. This is just a movie that picks that time era as a setting for what can be only described as a powerful visual and graphically explicit jungle adventure. Any debate on how Gibson fails to accurately depict or slanders a culture long past is futile and those who do, please stop confusing film with reality.
Alistair MacLean’s “Where Eagles Dare” is summarized pretty well by its own tag line “They look like Nazis but … The Major is British … The Lieutenant is American … The Beautiful Frauleins are Allied Agents!” One may want to add that they also talk like American or British agents while the Germans have a silly accent but then again it was 1968 and having subtitled Germans would probably have been met with little acceptance. As a result this action adventure has only its escape plot going for it, the setting becomes secondary.
Major John Smith (Richard Burton) is sent to rescue an American general who is reportedly in possession of the plans for D-Day from a seemingly impregnable German fortress located high up in the Bavarian Alps. Lieutenant Morris Schaffer (Clint Eastwood) is assisting Smith in this Allied operation. As the men penetrate the fortress, facing an endless supply of German soldiers, it becomes apparent that some members of their own small Allied team may not be who they seem to be.
This is not a serious Second World War movie, neither in tone nor in accuracy, it is a bit of escape fiction that has a lot of bombs in stock for the viewer and never takes itself too seriously and you cannot help but laugh at some of the German officers and their moves on the “Frauleins” while Burton and Eastwood kick ass in their own fashion.
If rated as war movie “Where Eagles Dare” would fail miserably if watched as action movie it is ridiculously silly most of the time, still Burton and Eastwood carry this film the whole way through to the end and it is amusing to watch besides the scenery and the “Frauleins” are stunningly beautiful and sometimes treacherous.
6/10
Besides “Lost” Season 3, “Battlestar Galactica” (S3) and “Supernatural” (S2) have also just started again and to be honest, between those three “Lost” is not doing so hot. The first episode again treats us with boring and stalling flashbacks and little to no real development, except for the revealing of the “other” village. We are fed up with stalling and flashbacks and the “mystery” of the island might as well bugger off and bite some monkey in the ass for all we care.
I rather spend my limited time watching “Battlestar Galactica” and if I have any time left, “Prison Break” and “Supernatural”, and – excuse me – but who the fuck cares if Dominic Monaghan gets enough screen time or not, it be best his character gets an overdose sometime soon anyhow, annoying as he is.
The rating for “Lost” Season 3 premiere was down by 25% compared to its Season 2 counterpart for no apparent reason? I don’t think so. It has been noted on many blogs time and again what the writers can do with their flashbacks…
For some obscure reason “Blade” (1998) was the first film I owned on DVD followed by “The Matrix” (1999). I subsequently also saw “Blade II” (2002) and “Blade Trinity” (2004) but was ultimately disappointed by the sequels. Spike TV now airs “Blade – The Series” and hopes to attract its viewers to this too cool to be true “Terminator of Vampires”. They call him Daywalker, neither human nor vampire, a half-breed.
Let us be honest, whenever you think about this character, you see Wesley Snipes, there’s just no getting around the fact that he kicked some major Vampire ass. Now, Kirk ‘Sticky Fingaz’ Jones, besides having a rather silly nick name, tries to live up to that figure as much as he possibly can but it is just not enough.
The acting of the cast aside, this show does not set new standards as far production design or CGI is concerned. Quite the opposite, it rehashes special effects on every possible occasion and uses prostheses whenever feasible, only that they are recognizable as such most of the time which rather kills any suspension of disbelief you might be willing to invest somewhere along the ludicrous story line. Vampire Ash as a designer drug? That is not only ludicrous but also immensely boring.
Nevertheless, it is Blade and people want Blade, they want it so badly that it does not matter if the show sucks or not, well at least for now it doesn’t. Everybody keeps hoping that it will get better eventually. I do not see that happen any time soon.