Okay, let’s think about this logically. I was just reading up (and I’ve been told) that The Matrix: Reloaded is considered a flop of a sequel. The first one set up such a good plot that the second detracted from that and focused solely on action. In essence, a stupid man’s film about boobs, guns, and fighting. Let’s rethink this, shall we? People always say that the
An all-star, stunner cast.
second film in a series flops in comparison to the first. But let’s think about a few trilogies followed the same principle.
The Lord of the Rings. There is an apparent escalation in the amount of action and violence in comparison to the first film. That Battle for Helm’s Deep? That’s a pretty damn good action scene. Star Wars. Both parts. Episode 4 has the Battle of Hoth and Episode 2 has the Clone Wars. Hell, even Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets has more action and violence than the first. You wanna know why this is so common? Because the story is set up in the first, and the meaty middle of the story contains most of the action before the crescendo in the third. It’s just the way trilogies are set up. Beginning, middle, end. Simple.
Get at me.
So, now that I’m done explaining that, plot.
Neo (Keanu Reeves) is back again with a vengeance. He has been releasing minds from the Matrix and kicking ass. He and Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss) are a loving couple (I stress loving in the sexual sense of the word for some of the content rating) and are returning to Zion after a meeting with the other captain’s in the Matrix. With the sentinels digging into Zion and threatening the last bastions of humanity, Neo, Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne), Trinity, and Link (Harold Perrineau) must find some way to beat the machines. It’s gonna be an all out brawl.
And this movie delivers on so many levels. Amazingly choreographed fight scenes, mind blowing CG graphics that broke ground, and great stunts throughout. This movie has it all for Martix and action fans
Straight out of anime. Word.
alike. Some revelation-level secrets are released and we all get to see why Neo is the one. What could be better?
The cool and suave acting is just as good in this one as the last. Everything about the movie just screams sleek and badass, but in a cool way. Keanu Reeves improves his performance from the last one in Reloaded as does Laurence Fishburne and Carrie-Anne Moss. Some newcomers to the film add some spice as well. Jada Pinkett-Smith, one of my Hollywood crushes, performs beautifully as the cold and intense Niobe, captain of the Logos. I loved playing as her in the Enter the Matrix game for Xbox, a game I would recommend re-releasing for the 360 or something. Please?
Wielding, like a boss.
Lambert Wilson was comedically enthralling as The Merovingian, an older program that has survived for years in exile. And Monica Bellucci, the drop-dead gorgeous Mary Magdalene from Passion of the Christ. She’s even sexier in this one, and I’m actually glad she’s in Revolutions as well. Collin Chou throws up a great fight scene (one of my favorites) with Neo as Seraph, the protector of The Oracle (reprised by Gloria Foster, sadly, for the last time). Throw in a cameo from Leigh Whannell, creator of Saw, and you have a great cast of Matrix familiars. A whole world is created with these interesting characters, and I can’t get enough.
Another great soundtrack from Don Davis and various Nu Metal/Metal bands I enjoy listening to, and you got yourself another amazing installment of the Matrix. I may just be a sucker for films like this, but I just can’t find very many flaws with these films at all. It’s a classic tale/archetype of the hero and his transformation/journey, and it just speaks to me on an epic scale of what a good movie and story is. So get at me about The Matrix: Reloaded. It blew my mind, and still does. 9.3 out of 10.
I am a huge fan of Matt Lucas and David Walliams’ hit British comedy, Little Britain. Their sketches and the characters/situations they create are groundbreaking and traditional all at once. They take the old British gag of dressing up as women and take it to the next level. They know no boundaries of race, religion, or moral. They will make you feel uncomfortable, all the while laughing at their zany antics.
And now, they bring you a new show. New characters, a new setting, but the same old tricks. It’s not necessarily overdone because we’ve seen
Taaj, keeping it fresh with the biatches.
the same style before, but they keep it fresh, just by being themselves. This time around, Matt Lucas and David Walliams are a variety of characters, all centered around an airport. In this mockumentary, entitled Come Fly With Me, Lucas and Walliams keep their fans happy with a brand new hilarious show.
Praise to the Lord they will not sue!
And what a show it is. With talking-head interviews supplementing situational comedy throughout the airport, Lucas and Walliams play over 30 characters in a feat I haven’t seen on Television comedies before. Every character feels unique and everyone can choose their own personal favorite. With the makeup being so well done, you may not even recognize Matt Lucas some of the times if you are just a casual watcher of the show.
But there is a problem people have with the program. They say it’s racist. And yes, I can admit to laughing hysterically every time Matt Lucas plays Precious, the coffee store worker. (It’s an inside joke about the name and personality, but it comes across as funny all the same.) Or, even the
All in a day’s work for Matt Lucas.
Japanese fangirls… But that’s not the point. I think this show proves that airports, despite racist characters like Ian Foot (Walliams), the airport head of security and customs, an airport is a place of a widening array of people. Unlike America, the “true” melting pot of all nationalities, an airport such as this one does have people from all over the world flying from all other places. It is a unifying experience, known simply as “flying”. Even Lucas and Walliams recognized that themselves when Moses (Walliams) approaches a Chinese man as the airport liason, and, saying, “Sprechen Sie Deutsch?”, he surprises himself with the Chinese man responding in German. And, despite all that, they show embraces and pokes fun at the homosexual community, Matt Lucas being a proud member of that group. So how could a show that pushes all the limits not go on doing so? Come on…
How much do you love Disney World?
Despite racist allegations and shots at the show’s ego in spite of being after Little Britain’s success, I’m damn proud of Lucas and Walliams getting back out there and doing more comedy. I missed them immensely and was just looking for another show to fill the hole in my comedic heart. This show did it (with the help of Snuff Box).
So set aside your politically correct mind for 6 episodes and sit back and relax and allow yourself to giggle at the occasional profanity or stereotype. I promise, when all’s said and done, you won’t be a
Get a load of that…
redneck. Or whatever you fear you may become. This show lightly grazes over a topic I didn’t know you could go over for 6 episodes for. Flying and airports. Hating the experience of flying itself, I felt this show handled a bunch of jokes that comedians have been pondering for years. “Why is airline food so bad…” And why is this show so good? 9.5 out of 10.
Chucky and the Child’s Play series has haunted my dreams ever since I was 8 years old. And, watching this movie again, it still sent chills down my spine. Leave it to movies of years past to make me want to piss myself when newer films today with all their special effects can’t do crap. What a cruel world. For those of you who don’t know, Child’s play is the story of a young boy who just wants a doll for a friend. Lo and behold, his mother comes through and finds him just the doll he wants. And he’ll regret that decision for the next two movies.
So the movie starts out like this. Old Wormtongue AKA Charles Lee Ray (Brad Dourif) is running from his ultimate
Say hello, Andy.
nemesis cop, Prince Humperdink AKA Detective Mike Norris (Chris Sarandon). The final face-off takes place in a toy store in some bad part of town and Chucky takes his voodoo training and places his soul in the body of a doll until he can later reclaim his life. And, a few weeks after, we find little Andy (Alex Vincent) watching his favorite cartoon, the Good Guy dolls. Pleading with his mother who busts tooth and nail to scrape through life for her son, Mrs. Barclay (Catherine Hicks) finds one from a sketchy drifter and his cart of goodies.
The events of the movie are amazingly supplemented by a big buildup to the point where you finally see Chucky’s true face. What I found more frightening was Chucky imitating the Good Guy doll he is inhabiting. “Hi I’m Chucky, wanna play?” in that sing-song voice of a demonic child haunts my dreams frequently. His eyes opening and closing reminds me of why I fear the technology known as animatronics. (Forget ever going on the
I can feel the poop in the pants already…
It’s a Small World After All ride ever again.) His blinks and innocent movements feign away from the evil animatronic face that hides beneath the facade. But when Catherine Hicks, mother of 7th Heaven swears her head off, you can bet Brad Dourif won’t let that bitch talk to him that way.
The movie turns into a wild goose chase of little Andy accompanying Chucky around the beaten streets of Chicago in search of a way to return to a human form. When it’s revealed that the worst must be done, it all comes crashing down for Andy. It’s a race against the clock for Mrs Barclay and Detective Norris
Your fate is sealed, in 7th Heaven, Catherine Hicks.
when they learn that Andy wasn’t lying, ever. As the tagline says, “You’ll Wish it was Only Make-Believe”, I’ve wished that for so long.
And not to mention the doll that Chucky is based on. Don Mancini must have drawn on some evil inspiration that graced his mind when he found Robert the Doll. Considered one of the evilest dolls on the face of the North American continent, Robert the Doll haunted Key West painter Robert Eugene Otto for his entire life. Talking to it and finding himself scared to death, Otto never left Robert’s side. Attempting to kill and curse anyone around him and even moving on his own, Robert the Doll to this day, being his old 104 year old self, will change his face to a mortifying, contortion of a grin. I was impressed with Tom Holland, slasher director extraordinaire, use of P.O.V. and a creepy sense of crawling around on the floor. The use of doll doubles mixed with actual animatronics has frightened me and will continue to do so as long as dolls exist in this world.
With this success this cult horror classic has created, there’s no wonder there are another 4 films after this one, and talk of a remake. Brad Dourif does a wonderful job of giving off a gruff thuggish voice and continues to do so. This movie went above and beyond the PG-13 rating and decided some F-bombs would be appropriate to show the extent of Chucky’s evil. This movie may be one of those B-rated horror films, but it broke ground for a kind of horror that freaks a lot of people out, dummies and dolls. If it frightens you, it’s done its job. And Child’s Play sure does that for me. Just for the poop in the pants, 7.4 out of 10.
And here’s the original trailer to set your bones on ice.
As I frequently do with my friends, it’s time to begin the watching and review of another classic horror film series. This time (and soon to follow, others) it’s the Hellraiser series, the brainchild of Clive Barker. In the vein of sadomasochistic pleasure and pain in the extreme, this movie explores the avenues of prosthetics and stop-motion animation in a way to frighten and disturb. With a new chapter in gore created, Stephen King said it best. “I have seen the future of horror and his name is Clive Barker.” Ebert might not believe this statement, but what does he know, right?
At the start of this movie, we encounter Frank (Sean Chapman), a two-bit, no good, gangster of a hoodlum. He has found this box on the other side of the world and plans to use it to explore the extremes of pleasure and pain. Upon solving the box in his “zen temple of an attic”, the Cenobites (creatures from Heaven and Hell) come to him to show him the way of the flesh. As Pinhead (Doug Bradley) says, “We have such sights to show you.” Upon ripping his flesh and bones from his body and dragging him to a Hell brought on through a wall, Frank says bye-bye to the world.
Ahhhh, the Cenobites...
Years later, and for no perceivable reason, Frank’s brother Larry Cotton (Andrew Robinson) brings his strangely detached wife Julia (Claire Higgins) and rebellious daughter Kirsty (Ashley Laurence) to live in merry ole London town. Although only his wife is English. And there may or may not be an issue with accents in this movie for people perceived to be residents of the U.K. You make the call.
Have you learned anything, Frank?
While here, Larry Cotton absolutely destroys his hand on a rusty nail (check dat shizz for tetanus!) and accidentally brings back the remains of Frank’s body from the other side. It is then up to Julia and her past affair with Frank to reanimate his body, Imhotep/Mummy style. Bring on the parallels. Oh, and it’s up to Kirsty and her “boyfriend/interested bystander” (Robert Hines) to stop them. Get it goin’.
There were a few things that, after watching this once before at night, that I was in love with. I loved the reanimation scene of Frank’s body. It was absolutely grotesque and ballin’, all at the same time. Stop-motion animation, like in Sam Raimi’s The Evil Dead, just gets my horror juices flowing. I wish more movies went back to the days of the clay. Accompany this with a Mummy worthy stand in of Oliver Smith as Frank’s decayed, yet regenerating body and you have the creepy crawlies when you see his muscles moving over bone.
The images of Hellraiser.
There were a few things that doesn’t work either. The believability of Frank and Julia’s affair. I liked the tie in to the sadomasochism with their violently physical relationship, but there was no real sizzle at any point in the movie. Yes, you get a bit creeped out when she kisses Frank’s unfinished body, but what can you do? Another thing. The strangely over the top acting from Larry Cotton. I don’t know what this guy was shooting for, but it really was absurd. Thank God for the Cenobites coming in to bring some acting chops (pun intended with Chatterbox) to this film. Kirsty wasn’t too bad, I mean, they invited her back for the second…
So pair these lacking parts with a breakthrough into the genre of gore/horror, and you have my favorite genre. When you can overload someone’s senses with horrifying images and a few jump scenes, what’s better than that? And the simple fact that Clive Barker’s vision for this film sparked 7 other movies? Let me get a piece of that action. With these cult classics comes some of the best horror of its time, and one of my favorite horror series in the collection. Thanks Netflix! A solid 7.3 out of 10 for this groundbreaker.
Okay, let’s think about this logically. I was just reading up (and I’ve been told) that The Matrix: Reloaded is considered a flop of a sequel. The first one set up such a good plot that the second detracted from that and focused solely on action. In essence, a stupid man’s film about boobs, guns, and fighting. Let’s rethink this, shall we? People always say that the
reviewsfromtheabyss 