Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Finally, Charlie's Angels

Yes, i finally managed to catch the Charlie's Angels premiere. Hulu came through for me!

I only wish it had Terra Nova, which i missed most of earlier tonight. What can I say? Someone wished I lived in interesting times, and dammit, I do. Sigh.

So Charlie's Angels wasn't bad, I guess. The only Angel I like so far is Abby, she's like a cat burglar turned angel, with the prettiest green eyes I've seen in a long time. Yea yea, call me a sucker for a pretty face, but she's cute enough to charm the toxoplasmids right out of my brain, lemme tell ya! Cat burglar? Toxoplasmids? Eh, eh? If you get the joke, you need to get out more.

Anyway, the pilot didn't really explain where the Angels' came from too much, and promptly killed one off to get a replacement in, and the Bosley character is apparently a master martial artist in addition to being a computer hacker, which is just insane and makes one wonder why Charlie needs the girls at all, but I guess the show isn't bad. There's not really much suspense, and it doesn't seem to have that detective story feel to it like the old show did, where you were as confused about how things were going to end up as the characters were while they were trying to figure things out. This show is more flash and less substance, at least as far as I can tell. Sure they spend time explaining things so even I can understand them, but there's so little suspense, things just seem to happen boom boom boom with little thought or planning on how to get from one point to another.

I can't say this show is going to go anywhere. They show off the richness of the miami area, where the show is set, they show off the girls very little, and in fact I saw more of bosley than I did of any of the angels, which, just isn't going to work for me since I am straight. lol In any case, Drew Barrymore is producing the thing, so it's going to be well done and have lots of lavish production on it, so hopefully, if the girls show off a little more, it might catch on.

I mean, let's be honest here, the old show did so well because the girls were not only ex police officers and ex-whatevers, with various talents, but they looked goddamn hot in bathing suits too. This show seems to be only showcasing their skills at solving crimes. Which, hey that's fine and all, and really SHOULD be the reason that real detectives are chosen, on their ability to solve crimes, BUT... we aren't that far advanced from the 70's. Men are still men, and we still want to see hot chicks in bikinis. Just sayin!

Now as for Terra Nova. The concept is interesting, I mean, we've done a million jurassic-park esque things, time travel and all, and even moving off-planet to get away from an overpolluted earth, but moving back in time to get away from an overpolluted earth is just genius. No pesky space voyages, no sleep chambers, no generations spent getting used to the planet you are heading for, just step through the time machine and you are back a hundred million years in the past, where there are no plastic bottles, no coal factories and no fat chicks who wear thongs to the beach! I mean, wtf are they thinking? Do they think they are all sexy because they put a thong on? Jesus christ ladies! There's not enough eye bleach in the world to...

Ahem. I got a little off track there.

So Terra Nova, which got a two-hour premiere instead of the usual one hour pilot (a sure sign of money being spent on a show), follows one family into the past, into a city where everyone helps out, everyone works for the betterment of everyone else, and there are no criminals because everyone follows the rules. Except those bastards from group 6.

Apparently, the family we are following, where the dad is an ex cop, is from the last group to arrive, the tenth such group sent through. But the people from group 6, well, they weren't so good. Apparently they were planning to take over or something, and once the city's military/security forces caught on to the Sixers, as they are referred to, the Sixers up and vanished into the wilderness, taking supplies and weapons with them. Now it's up to the security forces to defend the city of Terra Nova against the evil sixers, dinosaurs, aliens and what all else happened to be around a hundred million years before the age of man.

So yea, mankind brought war back into the age of dinosaurs. Good thinking! What confuses me is the standard time paradox thing. How do we go a hundred million years into the past without leaving evidence of ourselves that we would notice in the future? What happens if the city does extremely well, repopulates the earth and totally wipes out the timeline where they would ever have traveled back in time to repair the pollution to start with? What happens then? Everything disappears? We start over? GAH SO CONFUSING!!!!

I'm still waiting to see a show about intelligent dinosaurs. Oh sure, there's the jurassic park velociraptors, that hunt in packs and are sneaky bastards, but I'm talking about the evolutionary equivalent of a human brain in a dinosaur body. Think about it, if certain dinosaurs are really smart, and they know we can shoot the crap out of them with guns and stuff, why wouldn't they just befriend us and use us to further their own reproductive chances? It wouldn't be "dogs are man's best friend" at that point, it would be "dinosaurs are man's best friend." I mean, intelligence would dictate a certain amount of curiosity, if nothing else... why is it that dinosaurs are always trying to kill and eat us? Half the animals on our planet now don't like our taste, why should dinosaurs be so thrilled with it?

Eh, just throwing out random thoughts there. It might be a good show, there's tons of extras on it. That's a common thread with all the new shows i've seen so far this season. Everyone's spent money on the pilots. Apparently, everyone's either betting big on making it into the fall lineup permanently, or far more likely, there are no small production companies left and everything's being made by the big entertainment companies now. Well, let's hope they know what they are doing!

And next week monday, House comes back! And Dexter is on on sunday! w00t!

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Premiere Week

This is apparently premiere week for new shows...

Or it could be all month, who knows. Tonight, we have Revenge, from 10 to 11 wednesday nights on ABC. Apparently, this show is about... Well, you know, I think the title kind of gives it away, but the pilot pretty much illustrates what the audience knows that no one in the show knows, that the main character is driven by the desire for revenge.

Apparently, a bunch of rich folks framed a little girl's dad for murder when he was about to expose their corruption. They put him in jail, and somehow, she ended up in jail too, but when she got out, she found out the truth, and that her dad had died. So she decides to take vengeance on them all, and shows up like 10 or 20 years later, no one knows who she is, she's using a different name, and she's arranging things so that everyone in the area takes a really big fall.

I like this show. I'm not sure why exactly. Maybe i like cold hearted bitches who will rip your balls off with their teeth and spit them into your hot fudge sundae while smiling at you. They do seem to be my type. She doesn't even look like a killer, the main character. She looks like your basic girl next door who's a psycho stalker. She's not really cute, she's not exactly pretty, and she's not sexy, but she is acting like a cold, calculating bitch out for revenge, and that is selling the show quite well, in my opinion.

Come to think of it, this show sounds like your basic soap opera. Everyone is crooked, everyone is out to backstab everyone else, and everyone's filthy stinking rich. Hmmm. I hate soap operas. Maybe I'll just say I like the main character, she seems like a good actress. Plus it has madeline stowe in it, who plays an excellent villain. Maybe I'll watch it just to see how these two psycho chicks take each other out. Because honestly, who likes watching a catfight more than me? I got my money on the girl next door, because she's playing for keeps, and doesn't give a damn what happens to innocent bystanders.

That's SO hot in a girl, don't you think?

Tomorrow, the Charlie's Angels remake premieres. Just my thoughts, before i see the show... I watched the original like 30 years ago, and I thought it was awesome. Sure, I was like, 10 years old, but three totally hot private detective chicks working to fight for the little guy and find justice where none exists? They were smart, sassy, classy and I just wanted to have all three of them at once.

Yea, I was kind of a pervert at 10. Not much has changed over the years.

So why remake a perfectly good show? Why ruin my fond memories of childhood? BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT HOLLYWOOD DOES BEST. It's true. Eh well. from the looks of the remake, it's based in Miami, produced by Drew Barrymore, and hopefully will show a lot of hot girls in bikinis, because let's face it, that's what sold the original show so well in the first place. Yea, yea, I know. Some people say the producers only did that to boost ratings, that the show really wasn't about girls in bikinis, but let's face it... They did it to boost ratings. It actually made people watch the show. Sex sells, and it sells well. Hell, if people wanted to pay me for sex with Mr Tiny, I'd be selling it as often as I could get it up, which at my age is about once every three months. But I'd be holding an AUCTION! And a magnifying glass to make it look larger. But I digress.

If Charlie's Angels expects to last more then a few episodes in, it better show off a LOT of it's main characters. Otherwise, it'll tank.

As for Revenge? Well, it's a prime time soap opera. I give it one season for everyone to find out what's going on, and then either it's going to be the new flagship for all the daytime soap opera fans who have nothing to watch now, OR the people who watch TV at night will go "A goddamn SOAP OPERA? On MY TV? Not in my backyard!" and switch channels. Because frankly, people who watch TV at night hate soap operas. Even well done ones with psycho bitch versus psycho bitch. We'll see how things turn out, but unless someone gets naked, the main character starts killing people in mortal combat arenas, or ninjas fly out of her ass and kill everyone, I may lose interest halfway through next week's show.

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Fall Season Reviews

Okay, to rev up for reviewing horror movies for october, I'm going to review the shows in the new fall season! Yay!

I am way too excited about this. I think it's the drugs.

I tried to watch Playboy Club, or whatever it's called, last night. That's monday nights. 10 pm, Channel, 2, I think? Amber Heard is in it. There's some other girls, too. But really, for me, it's all about Amber Heard.

The plot of this has something to do with chicago, at one of those playboy clubs, back in the 60's, maybe? Could have been the 70's or 80's, but i doubt it. If you don't know about these, you were born after 1990. Playboy clubs were all the rage back in the old days, when Playboy magazine was the first time you saw a naked woman, and the internet wasn't even thought of back then. If you had the money or the know-who, you could drink and chat up ladies who were either featured in Playboy, or wanted to be, or who just looked hot enough to serve you drinks. There was probably some prostitution going on, too, but what the hell do I know, I was never there. I was barely even born by then.

To be honest, I couldn't watch the series pilot. There was a moment there where Amber Heard was looking over some female singer and thinking dirty hot steamy lesbian thoughts, because the actress herself recently "came out" as it were, and then the moment passed and I couldn't watch it anymore. I'm not really sure why. Honestly, you'd think Amber Heard, who reminds me of a younger Scarlett Johannson, with the same sultry voice, in a playboy bunny outfit would be every man's dream, but I just can't stand period pieces. This series should have been done back when playboy clubs were popular, and maybe it would have been a big hit, but I can't see it lasting more than a few episodes. Knowing my reviewing skills, it'll probably be the most popular show this year.

Tonight I saw New Girl, with Zooey Deschaniel. Tuesdays.. 9 pm maybe? Zooey's a cutie, but i don't think this series is going anywhere. There were a few funny moments, but there was a lot of filler material in between. Essentially, it's about a girl who is cheated on by her boyfriend, dumps him, and moves in with three guys to try and make herself feel better. Supposedly, she got tired of living with her model friend, which makes no sense, really, but whatever. So she's bawling and these three ... ok, three douchebags are trying to help her feel better, and honestly, i don't know how this show got greenlit. If Zooey's cuteness doesn't sell it, it's going straight down the tubes. I give it one season.

Also, I managed to catch the last half hour of Sarah Michelle Gellar's new show, Ringer! I have no idea what the premise of this show is about, but I don't really care. There was some party, and supposedly there's a body hidden in this antique chest, and Sarah knows about it and no one else does except there's some detective shadowing her... eh. Who cares. Oh how nice, a flashback to explain things, ok, Ringer, I get it now, she's a twin. So Sarah is playing not only twins, but the older, responsible twin, because apparently, her twin died. Oh that explains it, her twin died, and she's stepped into her twin's shoes to find out how and why. Oh, and here's something new, her twin's not actually dead. Of course, then they couldn't call it Ringer. This show... I don't know. It seems like they spent money on it, it's probably all sarah's money and she's trying hard to sell it. I'll give it... two seasons, held aloft by rabid Buffy fans who don't know when to move on.

I also tried to watch Unforgettable, something about a detective who runs into an old boyfriend... I've already forgotten this show. The detective is uninteresting, and the show bounces from one scene to the next way too fast to let you know what's going on. In one moment, she's got a gun pulled on a poker player, the next, she's dumping the gun in a dumpster. No clue as to what happened. Maybe they'll explain it later, maybe they won't, I'm not sticking around to find out. Cancelled within a few episodes, easy.

From the sound of it, it must appear that I have a short attention span, but honestly, I think of it as the exact opposite, a long attention span. If the show doesn't spend enough time explaining what's going on, developing characters, and moving along the plot, it doesn't sustain my interest. A sure bet to make me switch the channel is a show that's going only for laughs, bouncing around from scene to scene, popping off action for no apparent reason just to get viewers.. I see right through it.

Which is why I'm now watching Body of Proof again, a returning show from last season. All the actors know their stuff, all the characters seem well developed, and they take plenty of time to detail what's going on, who did it, and why. It's a CSI type of show, with Dana Delany, and that hot chick who played seven of nine on Star Trek Voyager. I'm sure she's a good enough actress that I should remember more than how hot she is, like her name, but as anyone who knows me can tell you, I'm not good with names. But anyway, it's eminently more watchable that anything else that was on tonight.

That's all for tonight. I know there's supposed to be some monstery, witcfhcraftery shows on this season, and I am looking forward to the return of the walking dead, and dexter, but I have to wait for october for those! I'll keep you updated if i find anything interesting to watch on TV.. makes me wonder why I bother paying for cable, honestly.

Sunday, September 11, 2011

What, already?

This was an odd summer.

Around the end of june, the weather went from 70's and frequent rain (we had roads washed out around here), to 85-90 and sunny. We literally had that weather pretty much all summer, right up until two days before labor day, when it was 89 degrees. Then the sunday before labor day it was 80, and come labor day... 65. yep. Weather's gone back to normal for this time of year, meaning HELLO! It's fall now. Of course, tomorrow and tuesday it's supposed to be 80, but hey, 75 is the normal AVERAGE for this time of year, so that's fine. Almost two and a half months of above average temps was pretty nice, though, it's just REALLY hard to get used to it being colder now.

And of course, today is 9/11/2011, ten years after the 9/11 thing. I say "the 9/11 thing" and not "the terrorist attack" because I'm not sure al-qaeda was responsible. Sure, I get as paranoid about the power our government has as the next raving maniac, and you can call me a nutcase or a "Truther" all you want, but as a trained scientist (really, I have a degree and everything), you learn to weigh all the evidence for or against and make the best decision or conclusion based off of what data you have available. The story goes that two planes rammed the twin towers, another crashed into the pentagon, and another crash landed into the PA countryside, all hijacked by al-qaeda terrorists.

Now, I'm not disputing that the twin towers are gone, the pentagon was on fire, and there's a hole in the dirt in PA. What I am disputing is that there's no solid evidence to support the claims about what actually happened that day. From my recollection, and i know at times memory can be a bit convoluted (especially since i was recovering from surgery at the time), but what i remember is seeing footage of a plane hitting one of the towers and flames exploding outward... without breaking any of the windows nearby. I remember saying "that is the fakest thing I have ever seen." And maybe that's where my disbelief first originated.

However, in the ten years since 9/11, I've learned a few things. There was a lot of plastic explosive residue in the rubble of the twin towers. Building 7 seemed to collapse despite not having any damage done to it at all.. not even a window was broken when it practically fell apart in what closely resembled a controlled demolition... which is exactly how the twin towers both fell. I've seen a lot of controlled demolitions on the internet and on TV, long before 9/11. There's a very characteristic straight-down sort of fall they have. Why the twin towers should resemble a controlled demolition when a plane smashed into the side of it seems ludicrous. I also remember, on that fateful day, wondering why the twin towers, which were designed to sway in a stiff breeze so the whole building didn't fall apart when there was a stronger wind, didn't BUDGE when the 747 slammed into it going hundreds of miles an hour. At least, according to the video i saw, it didn't. On that day, according to the news, a photographer just happened to be taking video of the upper level of the twin towers, catching the planes in the act of collision. Yet, according to the internet, no such videos now exist. According to president bush himself, in a recent retelling of his side of things, no one had any idea who was responsible for the attacks at the time, and yet, upon setting foot on the ground mere hours after the attacks, he was already telling people it was al-qaeda. Al-Qaeda, by contrast, and totally opposite the characteristic behavior of most terrorist organizations, denies any responsibility in the attacks themselves. Now, if you are asking yourself, why would I believe a terrorist organization, well, it's usual for them to CLAIM responsibility for what they do. It's their only means of advertising their power, advancing their agenda of terror, and recruiting new members. Never has any member of Al-qaeda claimed responsibility for 9/11, and in fact, they vehemently deny it, and yet we blame them and invaded two countries using them as a reason (but hey, we took out most of a terrorist organization while slaughtering thousands of innocents, good for us). The hole in the ground in PA where supposedly a plane crashed, is completely uncharacteristic of most plane crashes. A straight round deep hole is not the usual pattern. No bodies, body parts, or anything that resembled an actual plane part was recovered from there. The only proof of any passengers was a cell phone call from a passenger, supposedly calling his mom in the middle of a hijacking, identifying himself and adding his last name as if his mother wouldn't know who he was. The hole in the pentagon is rounded... not oblong or with side damage where wings would have collided.

Now, I can't say for sure what happened on that day, or what the real story is, but given the sheer truckload of conflicting data, i can't really jump on the whole "the terrorists did it" bandwagon there. And being a person who relies on reason and intellect to make it through my day, I just can't make up my mind to ignore all that information just so i can wave a flag and have my world make perfect sense, no matter how conflicting the data is. I'm just going to keep an open mind about the whole thing.

But honestly, that's not really what this post is about. I just saw the season finale of True Blood, and frankly, it was horrible. Spoilers to follow! The rest of the season was pretty decent, they had a coven of witches facing off against a horde of vampires and our heroine, Sookie stackhouse, and sookie and her vampire friends were victorious! Last week. Where the season should have ended. instead... in early September... They added a Halloween episode, where everything just goes wrong. I mean, labor day was last weekend... A halloween episode this early? Seriously? And it didn't even make sense, for the most part. Sookie has been going after two vampires all season, now she breaks it off with both of them. Lafayette, a poor homosexual cook in a cheap bar, loses the only good man he's had in years. As if he's not had shitloads of bad things happen to him already, right? And the main witch from the whole rest of the season comes back from the dead, takes over the powers of a demon while in the body of a powerful medium, and she can't even break through a simple salt circle poured out by a two-bit wiccan in 30 seconds. Last week she had thousand year old vampires burning in a wall of sunlight, this week she is foiled by table salt. And that's not even what stops her... The spirits of the dead talk her into giving up and going to the next world. Yep, they just talk her into it. I mean, if she couldn't be reasoned with when she was alive and human, why the HELL would she listen to reason as a demon spirit? I'm all confused. And they don't even SHOW how she manages to overpower a cadre of elite human guards and put silver chains around two of the most powerful vampires in the local community without breaking a nail. Then, Tara, who has had so much bad shit happen to her that she makes Lafayette look like a blessed lottery winner, gets friggin shot in the head with a shotgun! And then sookie kills someone! Honestly.. i don't know what the holy FUCK is going on in those writer's head over there, but this shit don't make much sense now.

Only two good things happened pretty much in the whole episode, things that actually did make sense... Jessica, the young vampire, finally hooked up with jason stackhouse. Well, when i say finally, I mean, after jason finally told his best friend that he's been having sexual relations with her since she broke up with Hoyt. Which is pretty nice, Jason is a likeable idiot, and jessica is ... well she's fucking hot for a pale, pasty redheaded vampire. Yea, i know, i normally hate vampires, but if she wants to lay naked on a slab at the morgue while I play the lonely coroner's assistant in need of a good... Ahem. Well... uh.. Another good thing that happened was Sheriff Andy finally got off the V, and seemed sane and sober for the first time in... well, ever. Not even before the V did he seem sane, but I'll be damned if I didn't think he was actually sane enough to actually be trusted with a gun now.

I guess they were trying to make it some sort of a cliffhanger ending, but seriously, WTF guys. Makes NO freakin sense, and i hope you writers can repair all the damage you did with that last episode. You should have done it at the beginning of NEXT season, not the end of this one. Also, Russell Edgington seems to have escaped. Now here's something that confuses me too. Russell Edgington is supposedly 3000 years old. Which is a thousand years older than Rodric, who was eric's sire, and two thousand years older than eric. Rodric is a good old name, which would make sense if he was born 2 thousand years ago. Eric was a viking.. makes sense a thousand years ago. But.. "russell Edgington?" He's supposedly english aristocracy... England didn't exist 3000 years ago. The closest thing to england was the celts back then, and they didn't have names like russell edgington. In fact i think they were lucky to have names, since most of them would have been fur-clothed savages running around with clubs and beating up on greeks and gauls...? Why call him Russell Edgington? Unless that's an assumed name, which, just seems silly.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to look up the actress who plays vampire jessica and perv on her for a very intense 30 seconds or so, then sigh in that wistful way of mine and go play some minecraft to take my mind off her thighs. Sighing already. Sigh.

Thursday, September 1, 2011

What, Bush again?

So yea, it's been a while. Pretty uneventful summer so far. Still looking for work, still not finding it. So I'm watching TV and I happen across this look back at 9/11 thing. And I'm watching ex-president bush tell his side of the story. What he was doing in those first few hours. Why he reacted the way he did. And the man is a horrible actor, so I'm not buying a word of it. An even worse actor than daniel craig in the last two 007 movies. Now I say daniel craig is gay because he acts like it in the 007 movies, so either he's a gay man who can't act worth a bean, or a straight guy acting like 007 is actually flamingly gay. And since, in the movies, he's supposed to care deeply about some of his female co-stars, being gay does not support the 007 role, so I must assume the actor is gay and just is a horrible actor. But Ex-President Bush, he's worse. Now it's not that I am a conspiracy theorist, or that I think kennedy was assassinated by aliens, and than the moon landing was done on a sound stage in hoboken or something, but I HAVE seen a lot of movies. I can tell by now when there's bad acting and good acting going on. If I beleive you, you're either telling the truth, or you're a good actor. if I don't believe you, you are most likely lying. Now i'm not 100 percent convinced of my own infallability on this. But when the man contradicts himself about something he said a few moments previous, well then, what am i supposed to believe? Either he was lying when he said the first thing, or he was lying when he said the second thing, because I am out of the equation at that point. Basically, what he said was, in the first few hours after the 9/11 attacks, he went directly to Air Force One after leaving the school where he got the news. Well, first after getting the news, he sat there like a statue for several moments. Then, according to him, he went into another room, and crafted a news release to read off to the parents and kids waiting in another part of the school, supposedly to let the public know that he was calm in this crisis. So after letting them know there was a crisis (which i am sure they would have guessed if he had simply sped off to handle it like any sane human being), he went to air force one, where there were, according to him, communication issues with the ground. So he had to watch the news unfold on TV like everyone else, although he was able to ground all other planes besides his own. So after merely two hours, during which time he has no idea who is behind the attacks, and after trying to find out what's going on, they decide to land Air Force One to go ahead and get better intel from the ground. So, now this is directly according to what Ex-President Bush said, they landed the plane and bush got into a jeep and the driver was speeding down the tarmac at like 100 miles per hour, and Bush says to the driver... "Slow down, son, Al-Qaeda isn't here." Okay. So how does Bush know the attacks were supposedly carried out by Al-Qaeda when nobody else in the world does at this point? When nobody has any idea what planes crashed, who was on them, who piloted them, what the names of the pilots were, who paid for their training, or any possible link to Al-Qaeda at that point? So either he was blaming Al-Qaeda before he had any of the facts, or he was lying about what he said to the driver of the jeep, since he himself said they were landing to try to find out what was going on. Either way, the man is a complete moron. You'd think he'd have someone check over his story for glaring errors of this nature before going on TV to tell his side of the story, and then totally contradict himself. Now sure, you could say something like "Oh, he was the president of the free world, maybe, despite claiming there were communications problems on the plane, he managed, in the space of two hours, to track down all the relevent information from the various newcasts he was watching and piece together that it was an al-qaeda plot, and then tried to reassure the driver of the jeep, that an otherwise mostly unheard of terrorist organization wasn't actually present on the tarmac where the jeep driver was going a little too fast?" Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight. Before 9/11, I am pretty sure most americans had never heard of Al-Qaeda. Most of us still can't spell the name of the organisation right, let alone were familiar with them before that. And that was ten years ago, when they were even LESS well-known. So if all that is true, why tell a completely random jeep driver that some random terrorist organization that he'd never heard of before, wasn't there? Simple Answer: Ex-Pres Bush is full of shit. Which just scares me. If an idiot can not only be elected president, commit war crimes against innocent people, but lie about it with impunity while contradicting his own story on national television, and not be shot in front of a firing squad for it, and the American people can just go "Meh." and go on about their day... then whatever they are putting in the coffee must be working. Wtf. I don't know what else to say about this level of bullshit other than... Stop drinking the goddamn coffee before they do it again, people.

Happy Halloween!

And OHMRAT 2023 ends just as it began.  With a quiet whimper.  Sadly, I had no time this month.  Too busy trying to stay alive.  But, I did ...