Read the article. It offers its very strong opinion and backs it up with plenty of facts.
As I said in the header, I thought the trailer for the film (there are several and the one below looks like the one I recall originally seeing) made it look like the movie could be funny but after reading this review, it sounds like its nothing short of a train wreck.
And, by the way, not only does it have a strong cast, Barry Levinson directed it. While he’s certainly had his ups and downs, he’s made some very strong films.
Over at RottenTomatoes.com, Rock the Kasbah thus far is suffering the same critical fate, though there aren’t enough critical reactions for the folks behind the site to offer a definitive overview. Still, of the 25 critics thus far weighing in, the film has a miserable 8% approval.
We’re still early regarding critical/audience reaction and the ratings may change but it would appear this might be a case where the trailer is funnier than the movie it is trying to sell…
On Jimmy Kimmel and on Back to the Future day (ie, the day Marty and Doc traveled to the future, according to the movies)…
Very amusing. Thought the best overall joke was “Marty McFly’s” reaction to being told, at the end of the skit, that Micheal J. Fox would be a guest on the show.
Pardon the pun, but how time flies! I remember going to the theaters to see the original Back to the Future in 1985 and being blown away by it. Wasn’t as impressed with the two sequels (BTFII had some very funny scenes taking place within the context of the first movie but the ending was so clearly “to be continued” that it annoyed me. BTFIII closed out the series well but the characters went back in time so far, to the wild west, that it lost the sense of immediacy the original had. What made the original so cool was to see Marty meeting up with his parents when they were his age. He knew them, but he didn’t really know them. In BTFIII, while we see distant relatives of some original characters, we never felt the same closeness to them as the original movie’s plot had).
Nonetheless, if nothing else, this makes me want to watch the movies again.
A short while back it was announced the upcoming season, number five, of Person of Interest, a favorite show of mine, would be its last one and, further, it would have only 13 episodes versus the usual 22-23 allotment. Fans of the show were distressed but I noted that sometimes its a good thing when a show lasts a fairly long time (As noted, this would be the fifth season of the show) and is then allowed to gracefully exit (you can read my full comments about that here).
Since that time, it was announced that two other shows I enjoy, both on the Sci-Fy network, would also be finishing up after this season. One, Haven, has just begun airing while the other, Continuum, wrapped up its shortened 6 episode conclusion season just a short while ago.
Continuum’s story involved a dystopic future where corporations are essentially king and capitalism’s dark side is in full evidence. The police force of the future, called “Protectors”, are a tool of the corporations to keep common citizens trampled under foot.
A rebel group, known as Liber8, fights the power but their members, including the brother of one of the corporate class’ most powerful men, are imprisoned and, on the eve of their execution, all, including a Protector named Kiera Cameron (Rachel Nichols) are mysteriously sent back to our present time.
The members of Liber8 realize this offers them an opportunity to re-set the timeline and negate the dystopia that’s to come while Kiera fights them, certain they remain a menace to society regardless of the time they are now in while longing to return to her previous life and the child she left behind.
What made the show so fascinating is that, as presented, the violent, at times homicidal members of Liber8 nonetheless pursue a noble goal: They fight against a future society we as viewers are increasingly clued into as being a very terrible one while Kiera, the show’s protagonist, fights -sometimes obliviously to that fact- for that grim future that’s to come.
I won’t get into too many details regarding the storylines presented, but in four seasons the show managed to walk fascinating line with viewer’s sympathies. As viewers we feared what the members (and, increasingly, ex-members) of Liber8 were up to yet couldn’t help but think at times that their struggle, in any other series, might have made them the heroes of the show!
And Kiera Cameron, the show’s Hamlet-like protagonist, was presented as a sympathetic figure yet displayed tendencies that in other characters might have been viewed as major weakness or worse. She constantly lamented her fate and her losses, especially toward the end of the show, and could have appeared self-interested, indeed selfish, to the point of risking others’ lives for her own determined pursuit to get back to her future. And, as mentioned, her fight against Liber8, by its very nature, was a fight for the status quo which might eventually bring about a very unpleasant and dark future.
Again, this was our hero!
While the too-short six episode final season (previous seasons ran 10, 13, and 13 episodes long) pushed several plotlines out of the way or into a too-quick resolution, I’m thankful we got what we did.
Like many shows, Continuum certainly had its ups and downs but when all was said and done, the highs were far greater than any lows and those final few minutes of the series wrapped its storyline in an incredibly satisfactory way.
Much like the show in general, it managed to manipulate our emotions, offering us a hopeful, optimistic ending that was nonetheless wrapped in considerable sadness.
When the end comes for Person of Interest and Haven, it is my hope they can exit as gracefully.
Yesterday, during the Monday Night Football game, Disney released the official trailer for Star Wars Episode VII – The Force Awakens. If you’re one of the very few out there who haven’t yet seen it, here it is…
Not too bad, right? Some of the special effects shots are impressive although the story/character stuff, to my eyes, hints at a Star Wars for this particular generation, one that’s inspired more by The Hunger Games than the original Star Wars. Then again, maybe I’m seeing more into this than there is.
I’ve noted before my curious feelings regarding Star Wars. To know me, you would figure I’d be a fanatic of the series. I was 11 years old when the original Star Wars was released way back in 1977. Before -and after!- the movie’s release I was a big fan of all things sci-fi. I loved the original Star Trek. I caught every science fictional show or cartoon I could on TV or at the movies. I loved reading science fictional stories both in novel and comic book form.
And when Star Wars was released, like so many others my age, I was dying to get into the theater to see it. I did so, perhaps in the first week or so of its release and to this day I remember the energy within that filled-to-the-brim theater. The theater was teeming with with boys (for the most part) not all that much older than me. When the movie began, they screamed and clapped and loved every single second…
…while for the life of me I couldn’t –still can’t– understand what it was that appealed to them.
As Star Wars played out, I found myself curiously detached from the experience. While others were going out of their minds, I was unimpressed. Sure, the movie’s effects were quite stunning, but the story didn’t engage me. In fact, I found the whole thing rather…dull. Toward the end, when we see Darth Vader flying away in his crippled fighter, a scene designed to clearly set up a sequel, I finally had some emotions regarding the film: I was livid.
How could the film’s makers (George Lucas was yet to become a household name) have the balls to make a movie yet clearly set up a sequel?
Bear in mind, back in 1977 movie sequels were an incredible rarity. Other than the James Bond movies, there were very, very few sequels or series of movies. Therefore 11 year old me expected a movie to be self-contained and, at the very least -and again, this was in my mind- not make reference to a continuation that may never happen.
So I walked out of the theater feeling rather odd. Everyone around me loved Star Wars just as clearly as I did not. And, being a sci-fi fan, I just couldn’t understand what it was I missed.
I would go on to catch the film again a month or so later when I took my sister to see it. That experience proved to be a repeat of my first experience. Filled theater, high energy, audience love.
And then there was me, still not feeling it.
Now please, don’t take my feelings regarding Star Wars as some kind of put down of everyone else’s. My personal opinions aren’t any more “right” than the vast majority of people out there who obviously loved the film,
The bottom line is that Star Wars simply wasn’t my cup of tea even though, perplexingly, by all rights it should have been.
So unimpressed with Star Wars was I that I skipped the sequel, The Empire Strikes Back, when it hit theaters. The first time I saw it was when it aired on TV some time later. As for Return of the Jedi, I caught that one in the theaters and found it to be a more entertaining experience though I felt Harrison Ford looked pained being in this film. By that time he was quite the rising star and perhaps wanted to put these movies behind him. Who knows.
I didn’t think all that much of the Star Wars prequels, none of which I saw in theaters, but in this respect my opinion probably falls in line with most others.
Which brings us back to Star Wars VII and its trailer.
Is it just me or does it seem obvious who the “big bad” is?
Used to be old time murder mystery films/TV shows would show us a hand holding a gun or some such to hide who the killer was. In those instances the killer was obviously someone else in the film, someone we knew, and the shock of that realization was kept from us by showing a hand or feet or a back and not showing us the killer’s face until the very end.
So with this Star Wars VII trailer we see a villain who wears a mask (hiding his/her face) and also speaks with a distorted voice. The voice thing is particularly intriguing: Here we have a villain we may know just by their non-distorted speech.
Add to the fact this villain carries around Darth Vader’s nearly melted mask and clearly has some kind of affinity for him.
By the way, which of the characters from the original trilogy don’t we see in this commercial? Why…Luke Skywalker.
….Hmmmmm….
Is that the big reveal?
That Luke Skywalker is the movie’s villain?
Could these films, therefore, be something of a repeat of the original Star Wars trilogy but instead of a Darth Vader going from evil to, by the end, good, we have Luke Skywalker starting out as bad and, by the end, becoming good? Following the path of his father?
It would be a gutsy thing to do, I suppose, given the way things were left in Return of the Jedi.
I suppose we’ll see in December.
UPDATE: I’ve read that Luke Skywalker’s role in this film is very limited and that the sequels to this film are meant to focus more on him. Even if Luke isn’t the badguy presented in the trailers, he might still be the big bad of the series of movies that follows…or not.
For a movie/set of movies I’ve noted weren’t my cup of tea, its annoying how much I’m thinking about them! Just goes to show: The power of advertising is mighty indeed!
The movie Lockout, starring Guy Pearce and Maggie Gracce was released back in 2012.
When it reached home video, I reviewed it (you can read the full review here) and noted how the film appeared to be producer/writer Luc Besson’s updating/remake of another, very famous sci-fi film:
When I first saw the trailer for Lockout I was intrigued. My younger, more strident self (as opposed to the more mellow person I’ve since become) might have been furious that Mr. Besson (who is also listed in the credits as having the “original idea” of this film!!!!) would so cavalierly rip off another person’s concept.
“Another person’s concept” referred to the fact that Lockout was essentially an outer space version of John Carpenter’s 1981 film Escape From New York.
Anyway, the film came and went and I thought, for the most part, was forgotten.
Not so.
It would appear someone involved/has right to Escape From New York sued the producers of Lockout for copyright infringement in a French court (Luc Besson and his production company hails from France)…and they won the case:
What’s fascinating in today’s day and age is seeing the various comments below the above article. Many, many people seem to acknowledge Lockout does indeed rip off Escape From New York’s (and its sequel, L.A., for that matter) yet do not feel the court ruling is appropriate because so many stories out there could be interpreted as being derivative of other stories.
To which I say yeah…but…
As a writer, I most certainly draw inspiration from the works of others and would never claim to create things “in a vacuum”. The fourth novel in my Corrosive Knights series, Nox, has a plot that was inspired by my having watched, for the first time since seeing it in theaters, what I still consider one of the worst James Bond films ever made, Moonraker.
And yet, if you were to watch Moonraker and then read Nox (or vice-versa), I seriously doubt you’d see any major similarities between either works. Indeed, had I not admitted I was inspired by the Moonraker movie, I seriously doubt anyone, even my most dedicated fans (you’re out there somewhere, right?!), would have ever linked the two works together.
But with Lockout vs. Escape From New York, there is very little doubt that one inspired (or, as the French court ruled, “ripped off”) the other. Whatever you may think of Lockout, good or bad, if you’re familiar with John Carpenter’s film, you instantly see the similarities…and they are quite significant.
You have a rogue anti-hero who gets incarcerated and, at the same time, a high level official (in Escape From New York its the President of the United States, in Escape From L.A. it’s the President’s daughter. In Lockout, its the President’s daughter) is trapped inside a highly fortified prison “city” (New York, L.A., and in Lockout’s case, a Prison satellite) where the inmates run the asylum (after a fashion they do so in Lockout) and our hero is forced to get inside this highly dangerous setting and rescue the high level official before time runs out.
Sure, individual elements are seen in many films/books/stories. You have thousands of stories involving a rouge anti-hero. You may have thousands of stories involving breaking someone out of a “impenetrable” prison. You have thousands of stories involving tight deadlines and dangerous missions, where failure to fulfill the mission in time means death.
But what makes the case of Lockout vs. Escape From New York so obvious, to my eyes, is in the fact that all these individual elements were put together in virtually the same manner with one major exception: One movie took place in a space station while the other took place in a dystopic Manhattan.
Otherwise, you’ve got the same story.
The producers of Lockout were ordered to pay €80,000 for their infringement, but they are appealing the ruling.
Interesting stuff. I’ll be curious to see how this all shakes out.
I love The Onion. For those who have no idea what The Onion is, it is a satirical pseudo-newspaper that skewers the way newspapers present information and offer humorous, at times pointed takes on politics and society.
They can also offer some really in your face humor…
Of the sixteen items mentioned, my favorite remains the one they show graphics to…
Bear in mind, this satirical article by The Onion was published January 17, 2001, three days before George W. Bush was inaugurated into his first term of office.
The article -perhaps too eerily- predicts what was to happen in the Bush presidency.
Another favorite, though this one is equally tragic as it is pointedly humorous, is this article concerning gun violence perpetrated by mass shooters:
It isn’t terribly surprising to realize you’re not terribly familiar with any of the cars in the slide show above. What is depressing is the realization that a few of the cars that aren’t selling are attempts by car makers to create energy efficient vehicles…and because of the lower gas prices, these vehicles aren’t in as high demand of late.
I say this is a depressing realization because I’ve seen this story before. We clamor for energy efficient vehicles whenever gas prices are really high but when they drop, we rush right back to larger, less energy efficient (and higher polluting) cars.
I can just imagine the frustration of working in the auto industry and trying to meet people’s demands for vehicles. You spend time and money designing an energy efficient vehicle but by the time it reaches the showroom and based on the price of gas at that moment, your product might be a failure.
Between the upcoming release of Spectre, the latest James Bond film, to Daniel Craig’s ill-advised (though I’m sure from the heart, unless he was misquoted) comments regarding making more Bond films to getting all my Bond films -so far minus the Dalton ones, have to work on that!- on UV, it appears I’ve been wallowing in all things James Bond for the past couple of weeks.
And I will continue to do so here.
From Daniel Dockery and presented on the usually hilarious Cracked.com…
I have the James Bond books but simply haven’t had the time to read them despite recommendations -and admonitions- from others. Of course the novels movies are based on will often be different, sometimes radically so, from the movies made from them and James Bond is no different.
However, of the five differences mentioned the one that struck me the most was probably #4, the manner in which Dr. No dies in the novel.
Without giving it away, reading this makes me feel his death was so very…anti-climactic. Silly even. However, one has to remember the novel was originally published in March of 1958 and, let’s face it, that was an awful long time ago. People people back then might have found some dark humor in the novelization death versus what I think about this villain’s death today.
Regardless, read the list, it is quite fascinating!
The latest Tesla vehicles have an Autopilot feature which appears to be one more step toward where I think all vehicles are going: Self-driving.
Here we see someone using this feature and finding it a little scary…
I’m not surprised by the driver’s reaction. As much as I’m all in favor of self-driving vehicles and, further, believe that’s the future of cars in general, I imagine if I were in his place I’d be doing exactly the same.
It isn’t easy ceding control over something you’ve had all along. Especially when -at this moment anyway- the roads are filled with people who are NOT driving automated vehicles.
In a nutshell, there’s a star, KIC 8462852, which displays some strange -mysterious even- fluctuations in the amount of light emitted by it.
It would appear something quite massive -more massive than a planet the size of Jupiter- is blocking the star’s light and scientists are at the moment at somewhat of a loss to explain what exactly is doing this. It could be some kind of massive asteroid belt, but that appears unlikely given the star’s age. It could also be some recent “event”, perhaps involving comets or planets crashing into each other, that caused a vast field of rocks to orbit the star and block her light.
Or…
(Forgive me, I’ve always wanted to use that image!)
Seriously, though, the fact of the matter is that the dips in starlight emerging from KIC 8462852 might (and I can’t help but stress the word might) be evidence of an alien culture.
How? It is possible that what blocks the star’s light is some kind of massive solar array designed to capture the star’s light and convert it to energy.
Again, this is nothing more than a highly speculative theory and one that could quite likely be proven wrong. But I have only scratched the surface as to why this theory is even in consideration versus other more natural explanations. I highly recommend reading the above article as well as this one, by Phil Plait for Slate.com, which also examines this star’s mysterious light emissions:
