Tag: Long

The Incredible Hulk

Reviews

11 out of 13 nots.
for never really slowing down and HULK SMASH!!!!

Long ago, there was another Hulk movie. When I heard about it, I was excited, I like the Hulk. I was very sad when I saw it and it was a slow dramatic mess that essentially shat all over most of the source material.

So, when I heard they were making a new Hulk movie and essentially ignoring the other film, I got excited again. And this time, I was not disappointed. While The Incredible Hulk isn’t quite as good as Iron Man, it is an example like Iron Man that Marvel is really taking care to bring their characters to the screen right, and not let go and have someone else make a mess of it.

This time around, we skip the origin, except in a flashback and a parade of news clippings showing suspected sightings of the Hulk over the last five years. Banner is hiding out in Brazil, working on a cure for his illness, and a group of the military, headed up by General Ross, is still looking for him. Banner has been talking to an unknown source who calls himself Mr. Blue, and Mr. Blue thinks he can cure Banner, he just needs the original data on the gamma exposure levels. To get that data, Banner has to go home, but even before he can set out, he’s found and the chase begins.

In the older Hulk film they bent the source material and forced in the Absorbing Man, and it was bad. This time we stick with Ross and in a much more believable way we get introduced to Emil Blonsky, who all the comic fans know becomes the Abomination. Like with Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk is rife with comic facts, characters and bits that will make the fans happy, but nothing that will kill the movie for the casual viewer. They even threw in a number of references to the old TV show… and again, managed to do it without leaving new inductees in the dark about some missed piece of information.

Overall, this was a great way to bring the Hulk to the screen. Well worth the price of admission.

Blipverts

Random Thoughts

One of the things I used to enjoy most about going to see a movie at the theater was the pre-show entertainment. Long ago it was simply some piped in music. Then they upgraded to those movie network things where they would actually play selections from movie soundtracks and on the screen they would project slides with ads for the candy counter, upcoming movies, local businesses where you could take your ticket stub for a discount, and trivia.

The trivia was the clincher for me. Either it was actual questions or those ones where they show you the high school yearbook picture of someone famous and you had to guess who it is. Sometimes they weren’t even entertainment questions.

At the Delk 10 cinema, my theater of choice for a couple of years, one of their auditoriums had the slides mixed up. My younger brother and I went and memorized the mixed up order, and at later visits we would confound the other audience members by yelling out the correct incorrect answers. “Who is the top money winner in professional golf?” “Cooperstown.” What movie is the most recent to sweep the top oscars?” “Tom Kite.” “What city is the location of the baseball Hall of Fame?” “Silence of the Lambs.”

This week I went to see Cars at the theater (I’ll review that later), and noticed that there was no trivia anymore. In fact, their slideshow had been cut down to about maybe twenty slides at most (it is actually a Power Point presentation these days, no more slides). And the music wasn’t real music anymore, it was fifteen to twenty second clips of songs, not even enough to decide if its worth going to the music store to check out the rest of the album. Even worse is that they only had about four of these clips with introductions, so the whole loop only took about ninety seconds to play. Having gotten to the theater with about twenty minutes to spare, it was fairly maddening to hear the same clips over and over, all with a backdrop of the same repeating images.

Did they do this because people’s attention spans have gotten so short?

The movie theater isn’t the only place I’ve noticed the shorter, rapid fire, less involved advertising going on, and it all makes me fear the possible real introduction of blipverts. Fight the power people… demand slower, demand quality, demand better. Faster and shorter isn’t always best, just ask any woman.

Wrath of the Dragon God

Reviews

Long ago when I saw the first preview for the Dungeons & Dragons movie, I got excited. First off, I love D&D, and second, it had Jeremy Irons, Bruce Payne, and Thora Birch. It looked like they were making a real class film. Somehow I managed not to know that Justin Whalin and Marlon Wayans were actually the main heroes of the film until I sat down in the theater. Wow, this movie sucked! It was so horribly campy. At least the special effects weren’t bad, and the scenes with the skies filled with hundreds of dragons were kinda neat.

Last year, when I heard they were making a sequel, I groaned. I actually looked into the film and found that while Bruce Payne had returned as Damodar, they’d managed to fill the rest of the cast with people I’d never heard of. I decided to pass. However, later a friend told me that it wasn’t that bad, it was even good. So, I dropped it into the Netflix queue and waited for it to be released.

This weekend, I finally got the movie and watched it. About the best review I can give is: At least Justin Whalin and Marlon Wayans weren’t in it.

First off, the special effects were not good. Ever watch TV shows like Charmed? The computer generated stuff looks fine, but when they put it together with the live action it doesn’t mesh well. They don’t touch in the right places, actions and reactions aren’t timed correctly. It just makes you increasingly aware that the person and the monster were never actually in the same room.

Second, and this is both a praise and a slam, this movie was exactly like a gaming session of D&D. The good part is that the story elements were pretty cool, it was like I was flipping through one of the old AD&D campaign modules reading about the kingdom and the towns, all the people and the history. The bad part… the dialogue. It was like someone had literally set a tape recorder down on the table while a group of guys played this module. When one of the characters died, I could almost here his player saying, “What? You’re going to bury me? Come on! There has to be a temple around here when I can be resurrected! Come on! You know what? Screw you guys!” and then he takes his Cheetoes and Mountain Dew and goes home.

This is one of those movies that seems to have so much potential going for it, but loses because the budget is a little too small and the script writer can’t lay off the wooden trite dialogue.

I think for the first time ever on one of my web reviews I’m actually going to say… Stay away from this movie. Its just not worth it.

Taxes

Random Thoughts

Its getting to be that time of year again… Taxes.

I really hate being a 1099 contractor. I’m not too bad with money, I never really spend more than I have. However, I’m not good at saving money. Since my taxes aren’t withheld by my employer, I tend to spend what I have. Then it comes to tax time and I owe a huge chunk of money.

Long ago I used to complain about W-2s… never again. I pray for the days when I can file W-2s again and kick these 1099s to the curb.

Anyway, I was just planning out how I was gonna pay my money this year and it was on my mind, so now its on my weblog.