Cowabunga!

In other news, I've got two new reviews to put up. So for your reading pleasure, here's my reviews of the second and third live-action movies based upon the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I'd have done the animated movie too, but I ended up deciding to wait until the DVD came out first. That should be out sometime around July or August, so I'll hopefully get to do it by the end of summer.

I've got a few more reviews lined up, so there won't be a whole lot of down time. I received Borat in the mail from Netflix today, so you can expect a review of that within the next couple of weeks. I also found something claiming to be a workprint of Hostel 2, so once I get it downloaded, I might do a review of that if the video turns out okay. I must say, though, that I'm not completely sure how closely a workprint will resemble the final cut of the movie. I don't want to go and review something, then have a completely opposite opinion of it once I see it in theaters. I think there might be other non-workprint bootlegs of the movie out there too, but I'll just wait and see. Let's just hope I don't get my ass sued off for all this.

Post-Birthday Notes

So now I'm another year older. And to be honest, I'm not quite sure how I feel about it right now. It's like this every birthday, where it takes a while for it to really sink in. Don't know why for sure.

But looking back, I'd say yesterday was a pretty good day. It was a low-key affair for the most part; no cake or wild party or anything like that. That's more than likely for the best, since everybody - even me - is still kinda worn out from all the activity from the weekend. So something a little less active was probably a good way to go. It probably doesn't help that it was a Tuesday too. If it had been on maybe a Friday or Saturday, things might have been totally crazy.

But you know, it might have been a slow day, but I'm a firm believer in the idea that waking up in the morning and going to bed at night constitutes a good day. Maybe it wasn't a huge exciting day or anything, but there's always next birthday for that.

Happy Birthday To Me

Twenty-five years ago today, yours truly came into the world, and I think the place is a little bit brighter because of me. No, I don't have an ego at all.

I had the idea to do a big "life and times" post, but after typing up a little bit of it, it started getting kinda pretentious and we don't want that. So I'll just say that it's my birthday and that's pretty rockin'. I'm gonna go party.

But Why Is The Rum Gone?

Went and caught Pirates of the Caribbean 3 today like I'd planned. I'd heard that it was getting mixed reviews, but no matter; I thought it was absolutely fabulous.

I'm not saying the movie isn't without its flaws, but that doesn't stop the movie from being entertaining from beginning to end. Truth be told, I only have two complaints about the whole thing: I thought some of the action sequences are long to the point of being borderline excessive, and I had a hard time following the plot and figuring out just who was aligned with who. Other than that, I really don't have much of anything to say in the negative.

Gore Verbinski's direction and Hans Zimmer's music are great, the effects are wonderful, and the cast is fantastic. Pirates 3 is a big, flashy, exciting summer blockbuster, no doubt about it. But there's nothing wrong with that, since the movie is really great. So I'm going to give Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End four stars and hope that just because this is the end of a trilogy doesn't mean it's the end of a franchise.

Lazy Saturdays

Yeah, so I haven't posted since Wednesday. Get off my hump about it.

Anyway, today was my town's Memorial Day weekend festival, which basically boils down to a bunch of yard sales up and down our one road. The main part was supposed to be at the park, but I went to the park and all that was there were some food vendors, a Lions Club booth, one of those bouncy inflatable slides, and some guy selling random stuff. And then there was a parade that was pretty much just a bunch of cars and ATVs driving from one end of town to the other, with the mascot for the Lexington Legends out there for some weird reason. I think because the Lions Club was raffling off tickets to a Legends game, I don't know. But yeah, today was slow. Could have been better, but hey, I can't say today sucked. I can't complain.

The best thing that came out of today was that my cousins from Cincinnati came down to hang out with some of the family at my uncle's house. I hadn't seen them since our grandmother died a few years ago, so it was good getting to hang out with them and their kids. Other than that, the heat wore me out, plus the Allegra I took this morning to handle my allergies made me kinda drowsy, so I'd say today was just a day to sit around and not do much of anything. Ah, lazy days.

But hopefully, tomorrow, Monday, and Tuesday are going to be exciting. I've got plans to see Pirates 3 tomorrow, and I'll be in E-Town on Tuesday doing something to celebrate the big day. Monday is the one I'm least sure about, since nothing is finalized, but I'm trying - hoping, really - to make plans to see Bug on Monday. We'll see how that goes, but either way, Sunday and Tuesday are gonna be at least a little fun.

So yeah, that's about it.

And Now For The Crappy Summer Shows

Just finished watching the season finale of Heroes. It took me most of the afternoon to download it, which means I really need to invest in a TiVo or some other kind of DVR. Anyway, I don't know if I could have asked for a better way to end this season. It wrapped up pretty much everything (except for the whole "Hiro fights a dinosaur" deal from earlier in the season, which I was - and still am - really looking forward to seeing), it set things up for season two, and it was a good episode in general. I am really hoping that Heroes doesn't come down with the sophomore jinx and fall off its mountain next season, because I've got high hopes for it.

And it seems like every show is either having finales lately. Take, for example, Smallville. It just ended its sixth season, and I can't believe I gave up on watching the second season of My Name Is Earl just to watch this crap. (I know I could have downloaded My Name Is Earl like I do with Heroes, but I just never did. Can't say that I have a reason why.) I mean, really, are Smallville's writing staff even trying? Okay, let's set this whole thing up. Lana Lang is apparently dead via car bombing because she tried to leave her husband, Lex Luthor. The whole marriage thing is stupid to begin with, and the show has also decided to insult our intelligence by insinuating Lana is dead. They're never gonna kill her off because everyone involved with this show is obviously madly in love with Kristin Kreuk, but even an idiot could recognize that the whole thing was just Lana faking her death so the Luthors wouldn't hassle her. And this leads to Lex getting arrested for organizing the car bombing, despite having the flimsiest motive ever, along with the fact that as far as I know, the police have nothing that even remotely resembles evidence.

Then there's Chloe. Poor, unloved Chloe. Somebody must have incriminating photographs of Allison Mack, because if I were her, I'd be telling the writers to treat the character with some friggin' respect before I walked off of Smallville and never looked back. (The same goes for John Glover and Annette O'Toole too, because both of them are way too awesome for this show.) Here's what happened to Chloe: A few episodes ago, it was revealed that due to all the times Chloe has been exposed to Kryptonite over the years, she's developed mutant powers just like pretty much everybody else that's been on this show. Anyway, Lois Lane breaks into this laboratory located in a dam, gets into a fight with a guard, and is promptly stabbed to death. Instead of calling 911 with her dying breath like any sane person, she calls Chloe instead. Chloe somehow tracks her cell phone down and arrives on the scene, stumbling upon Lois's corpse. Now after seeing her beloved cousin dead, Chloe's a big ol' ball of emotion. She starts crying, one of the tears lands on Lois's forehead, and boom! There's a big flash of bright light. Next thing we the viewer know, Lois is alive and perfectly healthy, and Chloe's curled up in the corner, apparently dead. Yep, Chloe's superpower was tears that revive the dead at the cost of her own life. I'll admit that Smallville is already pretty out there, but that is one of the most ludicrous things I have ever seen. Sure, they'll probably come back next season and say that there was some kind of shock to her system that just knocked her out, but she looked pretty dead to me.

And then there's the show's usage of the Martian Manhunter. Get this: the Manhunter is apparently trying to hunt down all these evil wraiths that escaped from the Phantom Zone at the beginning of the season. I can deal with that. But in Smallville's season finale, the Manhunter reveals that the final wraith was a weird Kryptonian science experiment. This is where it starts getting really stupid. Turns out that the Manhunter was also an assistant to Jor-El, and that he'd been sent to Earth to be Clark's guardian until he began "training" to accept his greater glory as Superman. See? That's stupid. If he's supposed to be a guardian, where has he been the last few seasons? Why didn't he show up when Clark had to fight General Zod and Brainiac all by himself? Why didn't he show up to straighten Clark out after he'd been infected by silver Kryptonite? Why didn't he show up any of the bajillion times Clark was in mortal danger? If they said the Manhunter took a wrong turn at Albuquerque and just now got to Earth, I'd almost believe that. But the idea that he's Jor-El's assistant and Clark's guardian? Come on now. If he's really supposed to be Martian, what's he doing cavorting around a zillion light years away on Krypton? Once again, I reiterate my belief that Smallville's writers are just throwing crap at the wall to see what'll stick. I mean, this is the same show that expected us to accept that Jor-El once took a vacation to Earth and became friends with Grandpa Kent, which led to Clark being sent to the Kent family on purpose.

And then there's the big moment of the whole episode: Clark finally tells Lana that he's an alien, and they didn't go back on it. And she was all, "Okay, no big deal. Let's make out." Six seasons of build-up, and the results are kinda lame. Sigh... nobody in the show's writing staff is trying at all. At least they finally got it out there without screwing the audience over, only it's about two seasons or so later than they should have.

The only halfway decent thing to come out of the entire episode is the introduction of Bizarro. He's not the traditional half-retarded "me am Bizarro" Bizarro that we all know. He just comes across as just being an extremely angry and violent Clark doppelganger. Bizarro has the ugly face, wears a different color scheme, and is made stronger by green Kryptonite as opposed to vice versa, but from what I can tell so far, that's the only resemblances I can see.

And the best thing as a whole I can say about Smallville right now is that the show that at least the end of each episode means that Supernatural will be starting. I'm surprised I never really got into Supernatural during it's first season, because it's a fantastic show. If Supernatural's writers and Heroes's writers could team up and do Smallville, right there would be the three best shows on television. A close contender would be Veronica Mars, but the geniuses at the CW Network, in their infinite wisdom, decided to cancel it. If it weren't for Supernatural and my favorite cape-wearing guilty pleasure, the CW Network could go screw itself for all I care.

I think now I'm going to have to start downloading My Name Is Earl episodes to make up for the lost time. Either that, or just wait for the DVD to come out in a couple of months and stick it on my Netflix list. I'm ashamed of myself for watching Smallville instead of it. And I'm really hoping for reruns, because I don't know if I've seen one new show this summer that looks like it'll be any good at all. Can't Fox just start a 24-hour Simpsons channel to keep me satisfied until all my other favorite shows return in the fall?

Posting For The Sake Of It

Yeah, I'm still around. I know, I'm shocked myself.

Haven't really had a whole lot to talk about lately. I am, however, working on some new S@TM material, as well as preparing to start the one-week countdown to the start of Operation: B-Day. Don't know for sure what the plans for the big day are yet, if there are any, but something will get worked out by then, I know it. Either way, we've got eight days or so, so I'm totally getting ready.

And while I'm working on some new stuff for S@TM, I'm not burying myself in it like I usually do. I'm being a little more casual about it. It's just a little something to kill time until I get something I'd like to review from Netflix. I had the idea earlier today that Battle Royale would be a movie I'd like to review, but by the time I started thinking about it, I'd already mailed it back. D'oh. No worries though, because I'm sure it's available to less-than-legally download somewhere out there on this crazy series of tubes we call the Interweb. I might have to review the other Asian movies in my collection too, but we'll just have to see.

And that's about it for now.

When Sequelitis Strikes

Went and caught Shrek The Third this afternoon. I didn't think it was as strong as the other two, but I have to say that it was an entertaining movie. And isn't that what most movies should be?

While I do think that this particular movie was indicative of how the Shrek franchise is starting to run out of steam, Shrek The Third still made a good go of it. There were a number of truly funny moments, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't have a good time watching it. Pretty much all the cast gives it their best, though Justin Timberlake seemed to be the weakest link (though his character was the weakest, so that's probably part of it). The animation is still fantastic, and the soundtrack is great as well. Outside of my previously mentioned complaints about how it feels like "sequelitis" is finally catching up with the Shrek movies, I really don't have a lot of bad to say about Shrek The Third. I'll give it three and a half stars and a recommendation to fans of the first two movies. Now I've heard that Shrek 4 has already been approved and I'll definitely see it, but I really want to see a Puss-In-Boots spinoff instead. Is that too much to ask?

So that's enough of that. I'm gonna go relax and watch the Heroes marathon on the Sci-Fi Channel. Later.

I'm Glad I Didn't Go To That School

I just finished watching my latest Netflix rental, a little Japanese flick titled Battle Royale. For those of you who are a little less than familiar with it, here's a quickie synopsis for you: Japan is experiencing a drastic youth uprising, so lawmakers pass the Millennium Educational Reform Act, nicknamed "the B.R. Act." This means that once a year, a random class of high school freshmen are selected to take part in a game called "Battle Royale." Not that that's a good thing or anything. They're rounded up, dropped on a deserted island with randomly assigned weapons, and are forced to fight one another to the death. They're given a strict set of guidelines and three days in which to whittle themselves down to one sole survivor, or else the collars around their necks will explode. It's basically like that movie The Condemned, except it's missing the reality show gimmick and instead of Steve Austin and the guy that played Juggernaut in X-Men 3, the contestants are forty Asian teenagers. Battle Royale came highly recommended from some folks up in New England, and I'd heard good things about it even before that, so I figured I'd give it a go.

Aside from the absolutely horrible subtitles, I have to say that I liked the movie a lot. It's almost as if the creators decided it'd be neat to add knives, guns, and explosives to Lord of the Flies. Naturally, there were a few parts I didn't get - like those wholly useless "requiems" added to the end of the movie, and why none of the participants had any idea that Battle Royale exists despite the last winner being all over the news - but other than that and the aforementioned bad subtitles, I had a lot of fun watching the movie. Though I will say that I thought there was a lot they could have done with it.

I think if the movie had waited a couple of years, they could have really played into the whole reality show craze. Battle Royale was released in 2000, when the only big reality shows were The Real World, Survivor, and Cops. They could have done it like The Running Man and had people taking bets on it, maybe watching it live on pay-per-view for $39.95 a pop. Just something to make that one scene with the paparazzi and the crazy smiling girl have some kind of bearing on the plot. It could have given the movie a shot at having some kind of social commentary about what kind of sicko would pay to watch a bunch of 14-year-olds kill each other in the most violent ways possible.

But the movie instead concentrates mostly on the Lord of the Flies aspect, with the kids who are trying to buck the system and end the game, others that buy into it and become heartless killing machines, and ones that are just trying to survive. The movie seems to borrow a little from Reservoir Dogs, evidenced in the lighthouse scene. The scene centers around a group of girls who have taken refuge in a lighthouse; one of them has secretly slipped poison into another girl's food, and the resulting death causes all the girls go crazy with paranoia and accuse one another of being the killer before pulling their guns and mowing each other down. It's an intense scene, one that is very much Quentin Tarantino's style to the point that it makes me wonder if he had a hand in the creative process. It also makes me hope that when the time comes for some American studio to produce a Battle Royale remake, they hire Q.T. to write and direct it. (And I also hope that in the event of a remake, Battle Royale will finally get an official release on DVD in the United States. Maybe they can put some mistake-free subtitles on there too, since that bugged me to no end.)

Pretty much everything about the movie is worth seeing. Director Kinji Fukasaku does a great job, as does his cast. The music - especially the classical stuff they work into it - is excellent, and the violence and gore are both bountiful and well done. So I'm giving it four stars on the patent-pending Sutton Scale, and a recommendation to check it out if you're in the movie's target audience. I imagine that ultraviolent movies such as this aren't for everyone, so if you're the kind of person that isn't into movies with a very high body count and a few gallons of blood, I suggest you avoid Battle Royale like the plague. Everybody else, track down a copy if you can find one.

Broadening My Blogging Horizons

Man, six of my previous seven posts have somehow involved movies; either I was watching them or I was writing about them. I really need to find myself some other topics, like stupid spoiled whores in prison (which is a South Park episode waiting to happen) or another stream of consciousness post like the one I made a week and a half ago. Just something to change things up once in a while, y'know?

Maybe once this whole "moving forward" campaign of mine makes a teensy bit of progress, we can start delving into more interesting and/or entertaining topics here at the MSX. I mean, I often accuse myself of having limited imagination, so I'm not really thinking up all that many topics for posts just sitting around doing nothing most of the time. Yeah, there's things I could talk about, but I'm afraid I could end up becoming repetitive. That's why don't do posts about Heroes every week, since there's only so many ways I can say "this show is awesome" before I start to sound like a broken record. That's one big reason why I'm looking forward to July, because the second season of Who Wants To Be A Superhero? begins, and I'd really like to do recaps of each episode like I did last August. Those were a lot of fun, and I can't wait to do that again.

But yeah, I could probably stand to broaden my blogging horizons. I do get tired of writing about pretty much the same thing over and over. After all, I'm here to entertain myself and my readers (both of them), not bore you to tears with the same stories and anecdotes you've heard ten trillion times before. So I'm going to work on that, and you can work on continuing to come back and read this. Is that a deal? Cool.

Before You Die, You See A Korean Movie

I was hoping that the post following my whole 28 Weeks Later rant would have been a wee bit more upbeat. But I guess I don't always get what I want, and I'll explain why.

It all goes back to movies. I was hoping I could find something to put me in a better mood after Friday, so yesterday afternoon, I finally got around to watching The Ring Virus, a South Korean remake of The Ring that predates the American remake by about three years or so. I got it from Netflix on Thursday, and I have no idea why it took me a few days to watch it. But then I started watching it, and it hit me: the movie is very, very dull. So dull, that I don't think I can really remember a whole lot about it. I remember one or two scenes, and it ends with the girl crawling out of the television like the Japanese and American Rings, and that's about it.

Maybe I thought it was dull because, aside from a particular detail or two, it didn't really present me with anything I hadn't already seen in any of the other Ring movies. And because of that, it barely kept my attention at all. People talk about American remakes not being any good, but The Ring Virus shows me that other countries might not be doing remakes all that well either.

I might watch the movie one more time before I mail it back tomorrow, but I really can't see myself changing my opinion on it. After seeing two less-than-stellar movies this weekend, I hope Netflix will pull through in the clutch for me. The top two spots in my queue are currently held by Battle Royale and Casino Royale, both of which I'm told are quite good, so I'm looking forward to them. Plus I expect Shrek 3 and Pirates 3 to both be entertaining as well, so the rest of this month should be looking up when it comes to cinematic adventures.

28 Weeks Later Is An Awful Movie

Let's get one thing out there right from the start: 28 Weeks Later sucks. Hard. It's such a horrible movie, it makes me hate 28 Days Later for having inspired it. It's such a horrible movie, that if I had to choose between watching this or watching BloodRayne, I'd probably choose BloodRayne. It's that bad. The writing is weak, the directing is tremendously awful, and the cast acts like they'd rather be anywhere else on the planet than making this movie.

The movie looks like it was made using an epileptic camera crew and an editor that decided to make a cut every second and a half. We never get any sense of what is happening during any of the action sequences, because they're so poorly crafted. A hummingbird couldn't make heads or tails of this mess. And let's not forget that laughable night-vision sequence. It looks like a bad combination of The Blair Witch Project and Paris Hilton's sex tape, and the funny part is that it wasn't even all that dark in the area the characters were in to begin with. You know you're screwing up when you're attempting a serious scene and the audience is laughing harder and harder as time goes on.

And while the movie has an intriguing concept, everything about the script is just bad. It goes from one absolutely preposterous, intelligence-insulting situation to the next. For example, how does one infected person manage to track the group through most of London completely undetected? Secondly, is it just me, or is it absolutely ludicrous to think that characters can survive being completely enveloped in nerve gas by just pulling their shirts over their noses? Since when is nerve gas equal to a fart? And thirdly, being infected yet not showing symptoms because your eyes are two different colors makes no sense at all. And get this: the movie completely steals a sequence from Grindhouse. There's a bit in the Planet Terror half of Grindhouse where a helicopter leans forward and chops up a whole platoon of zombies. And guess what? 28 Weeks Later does the exact same thing. I hope Robert Rodriguez sees the movie and sues the production team back to the Stone Age for ripping him off.

Another problem is that I just didn't care about the characters at all. The movie never gave me a reason to. By the halfway point, I was hoping that all the characters would be killed just so the movie would be over and I could go home. The cast obviously doesn't care, as all of them are phoning in their performances. The wardrobe department might as well have issued everyone T-shirts that said "Just Collecting A Paycheck."

Everyone involved with this abortion of a movie should be ashamed of themselves. If I were Danny Boyle and Alex Garland, I'd track down and violently assault the cast and crew for daring to sully the good name of 28 Days Later with this garbage. You know your movie is awful when the best part of it is the trailers that play before it. (FYI, we got the trailers for Resident Evil: Extinction, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, and Live Free or Die Hard. I'm sure all of them will be better than this movie.)

I'm just going to tell you all right now that if you want to see 28 Weeks Later, you should either wait until the movie is in a second-run cheap theater or simply download it online and watch it for free. That way, you won't be wasting too much money on this. I'm giving it two stars, and let us never speak of it again. Well, let us not speak of it until September or so, so I can tear the movie a new one when I give it a full S@TM review.

I've got plans to see Shrek 3 next weekend and Pirates of the Caribbean 3 the weekend after that, so hopefully those will be better than this. And I'm hoping that I'll get at least a chance to see Bug too, because that looks awesome.

More Reviews To Come?

I mentioned back on Tuesday that I was working on a rewrite of my 28 Days Later review, and I got it completed last night. So yeah, go check out the new-and-improved review to get yourself amped up for the sequel, which is in theaters today.

As it stands right now, I'm aiming to have Borat be the next review that I do off the Netflix list, but I've got a few in the collection that I've got my eye on. I've said a million times that I was wanting to do Jackie Brown, which I may do concurrently with Grindhouse just so I can get the rest of the Quentin Tarantino directorial catalogue done in one fell swoop. (And no, I'm not counting his segment from Four Rooms.) I'm also looking at the live-action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles sequels and the Ghostbusters movies. Or maybe even a "Brad Pitt: Nihilist" double feature of Seven and Fight Club. I could even throw in Twelve Monkeys and make it a triple feature.

Man, it seems like I write a post like this once a month. I really need to work on some fresher material.

I'll Get It Written Sooner Or Later... Maybe

Remember all those posts I made a few months back about how I wanted to write a movie? I miss those days. Though truth be told, I haven't thought about it in a while. And I'm not exactly 100% sure why that is.

I got so into the idea of writing a script, but things slowed down, stalled, and eventually stopped. It might be that I was really into wanting to write one, but when it came time to actually do it... I really didn't know what I was doing. Is it that hard to think up some kind of plot or narrative or anything like that? I'll be the first to admit that I'm not all that great when it comes to narrative writing, but it came to that script, it's like I kept running headlong into a brick wall.

Could it be that I simply don't have a story to tell? I came up with plenty of scenes and a little bit of dialogue that I liked, but I couldn't think of any way to connect them, any way to put them together into anything resembling a story. What's my deal, anyway? If you put a million monkeys in a room with a million typewriters, they could probably churn out something before I could even get started.

If this remains something that I really want to do, I'll hopefully be able to get something rolling once I get my whole current situation worked out. Maybe when I get some real life experiences in, beyond all the goofy stuff I did with my college buddies so many years ago, I can come up with something that will put all the pieces together. At this point, I'm not even worried about writing something that I can produce into an actual feature film. I just want to see if I can take that first step.

But as with everything, we'll have to see where it goes from here.

A Few Touch-Ups

In other news, I've been doing a little writing lately. I was reading my review of 28 Days Later this past weekend, and I decided that with the sequel coming out on Friday, now was as good a time as any to go ahead and give it a total rewrite.

Really, a rewrite was in order, since the version I have up now isn't as good as it could be. It's woefully short, has a few glaring spelling errors, and I didn't get very in depth. It's basically, "Intro, plot synopsis, it was a good movie, the end." So I figured a rewrite was in order.

I'll hopefully have it up by Friday to coincide with the release of 28 Weeks Later. But if not, at least I'll get it taken care of. Nothing wrong with a little self-improvement here and there.

I'm Tired Of No-Talent Skanks

So yesterday I made a post about Paris Hilton facing a month and a half in jail, and how I felt that she believes she's above the law by trying to talk Arnold Schwarzenegger into giving her a pardon. As you can tell, that post is no longer here. I got to thinking about it after I posted it, and I made the choice to delete it. It's one of those deals where in retrospect, it just wasn't a post I wanted to make. Besides, in the extremely slim chance a member of the Hilton family reads this blog, I don't want to get sued for libel.

But I really do get the impression that Paris believes she's above the law. I don't care what her excuse is; how do you not realize that speeding and driving on a suspended license while you're on probation is probably a bad idea? I also fail to understand just why she's famous in the first place. Aren't you supposed to work your way to fame, as opposed to getting famous and then working? And it's not like she's done anything that's been any good. Pretty much all of her movies have gone direct-to-video; her album just barely sold enough copies to earn gold certification from the RIAA and dropped completely off the Billboard charts in a couple of weeks; and I have no clue how The Simple Life lasted one season, let alone five seasons on two different networks. (I will admit, though, that I watched a few episodes of The Simple Life during the third and fourth seasons, and I thought Nicole Richie was funny. Paris... not so much.)

I just don't get it. I don't get it at all. I know Paris is only supposed to go to jail for 45 days, but can we instead drop her, Lindsay Lohan, Britney Spears, and all these other no-talent skanky party girls on a deserted island so we never have to hear from them again? Is that too much to ask? At the very least, can we lock Nicole Richie in a room for a week, with nothing but Krispy Kreme donuts to eat? If Kirstie Alley and Anna Nicole Smith can lose weight, can't she gain it?

So When's Spidey 4 Come Out?

Just got back from seeing Spider-Man 3 in Frankfort. And while I liked it, I do have some complaints. I'll get into all that, but first, I have to say that this post is probably gonna have some spoilers, so you readers who haven't seen Spidey 3 yet and don't want to know anything about it might want to just skip to the end.

Okay, want to know my beefs with the movie? One is that it seems Gwen Stacy's role wasn't all that big. She's an important part of the Spider-Man mythos, but it seems like she was just pushed into the background here. Yeah, she might serve as one of the catalysts for the drama between Peter and Mary Jane, but I never really got the feeling that she was any sort of rival to Mary Jane at all. There could have been an opportunity for a love triangle between Peter, Mary Jane, and Gwen, but the movie instead falls back on the Peter/Mary Jane/Harry triangle from the first movie. For all she was worth, they could have given Gwen some other unrelated name and it wouldn't have made any sort of difference at all.

I also didn't like the fact that Venom was killed off. Does every comic book villain have to be killed off in the movie version? Green Goblin's death is understandable, as it pushed Harry's character arc forward. But can't we have a villain that lives to fight another day? Aside from Lex Luthor, I think the only comic villain to get away at the end was Scarecrow in Batman Begins. So Green Goblin is dead, Doctor Octopus is dead, Venom is dead, and I don't see them using Sandman again, at least not for a while. If they keep up this trend, they'll end up having to use villains that could come across as being lame, like Vulture or Rhino. This sort of thing was one of the problems with Tim Burton and Joel Schumacher's Batman movies. Joker, Penguin, and Two-Face all ended up dead and Riddler became a shell of his former self, when sequels featuring them could have been really good. And although there is a teensy bit of the Venom symbiote left, I doubt it'll ever come up in another sequel.

Another problem I had with it is that there was just too much going on. If they'd cut the plot in half, with Sandman and Harry as the villains of one movie and Venom as the villain of another, then it might not have been as worrisome. I've heard that Sam Raimi doesn't exactly like Venom, so I assume that he just shoehorned the character in here to shut Avi Arad up. It just feels like there's so much going on, but there still a feeling that some scenes were left out. There just seemed to be some gaps in the story. Like how does Spider-Man reprising the upside-down kiss with Gwen, and her ditching Peter in the middle of the date lead to Eddie Brock's claim that Peter "stole [his] girl"? Of course, this probably means there'll be either a three-hour unrated cut or a huge number of deleted scenes when the movie is released on DVD in a few months.

However, everything else about the movie is fantastic. Raimi's direction is sound, the acting - especially Tobey Maguire and Topher Grace - is great, and the special effects are amazing. Plus the cameos from Stan Lee and Bruce Campbell are almost worth the price of admission itself. Outside of my above complaints, the movie isn't too bad at all. It's actually a lot of fun. And really, isn't that what most movies should be? I might have to give the movie a second viewing to really get a feel for it, but I'm going to give Spider-Man 3 three and a half stars, leaning towards four.

And now to wait for Spider-Man 4.

Screw The Derby

I don't know how it is in any of the other 49 states or around the world, but all everyone around here has been talking about for the last two weeks is the Kentucky Derby. And I couldn't care less.

I think I'm the only person in the entire state of Kentucky that doesn't seem to care about some stupid horse race. I don't see its appeal. It's not like the Super Bowl or the World Series or the NBA Finals, where there's an exciting six-month build to the big show. You never hear anything whatsoever about horse racing until the Derby. I don't, at least. At then two weeks before the Derby, the entire state loses its mind for what? A bunch of horses that run in a circle for two minutes? At least NASCAR races go 200 laps. Why not have the horses run ten, or even five laps?

Maybe I should be a little excited, this year, considering that there are two horses from this county in the Derby. But am I excited? Nope, can't say that I am. The truth of the matter is that I'll be happy when this day is over, so I can go a year without having to hear about this stupid Kentucky Derby.

Finding Things To Do

Other than watching the Brian Pillman DVD and repeatedly conquering Resident Evil 4, there really isn't a whole lot of anything going on. Life never was all that exciting or anything, but man, it seems like things are a lot more boring lately. I'm sure I could alleviate some of this boredom by getting back in the habit of turning my instant messengers on. I'm sure my absence has been noticed by those of you I regularly chat with, and I'm sure you guys are probably wondering where I am, so I'll explain.

Remember a week or two ago when I was sick? I stopped logging into any of my IM programs at night, figuring that I'd probably get into a really good conversation and be up all night when I could use plenty of rest instead. And ever since, I've just gotten lax in turning any of them on. Sorry 'bout that, folks; I'll try correcting that soon.

But moving along, I'm going to try and come up with some plans this weekend. I could use a haircut, plus Spider-Man 3 comes out today, so I'm hoping to do one or both of those sometime this weekend. Of course, if I had my way, I'd be at the movies all month. I'm trying to make plans to see Shrek 3 and Pirates of the Caribbean 3, and I'd love to see 28 Weeks Later and Bug when they come out, but it just comes down to money and opportunity. Considering that my current financial and transportation situations, finding the money and opportunity to see any of those movies is going to be tricky.

But I'm working on that. Or trying to, at least. It goes back to that whole "moving forward" thing I've talked about before. But I'm really wondering just how far that I've moved forward so far. The year is almost half over, and I'm barely making baby steps in the right direction. Baby steps is a good start, don't get me wrong. At least it's better than spinning my wheels. But I guess I was expecting to leap headfirst into things. I've always been like that, always expecting things to be in full swing when I get there instead of trying to build them up first. I guess that's why things are the way they are. But here's hoping for changes for the better.

Wow, in just four paragraphs, this post seems like it's been all over the place. That's what happens when I decide to type up a post with no topic in mind and end up going with a "stream of consciousness" style. I'm not even sure that I can find away that it all connects seamlessly. But hey, it's better than one of those lame "I got nothing" posts. At least it's something, right?

One More In The "Win" Column

I posted on Tuesday that I was making my way through Resident Evil 4's main game for the tenth time, and I just beat it a few minutes ago. The final score: 968 freaks killed with seven deaths of my own, and a final playing time of six hours, four minutes, and two seconds.

Those seven deaths were all due to me either doing something stupid or accidentally killing Ashley. She's such a frail girl. I mean, the poor dear can't even handle a rocket launcher to the face. Though that's my fault, since I was all out of rifle ammo at the time and I had to use something to stop those two freaks operating the rolling death machine. So I figured it was either fire wildly with a machine gun or try something I could get a good shot with. Turns out that a rocket couldn't exactly fit between the bars between myself and Ashley. A few other times were thanks to me meeting the business end of those big Thwomps just beyond the bug cave. Leon went and got himself squashed three or four times, but that's his fault for not being squash-proof. I mean, isn't everybody squash-proof nowadays?

So yeah, I've beaten Resident Evil 4 ten times. Go me. I don't even think I've beat the other five Resident Evil games ten times combined, which goes to show just how addictive Resident Evil 4 is. I think I'm going to stick with ten for a while, maybe wait a little bit before I even start thinking about taking an eleventh shot at it. But knowing me, I'll probably jump back into it again in a week or two. Curse this infernal game!

I Miss Brian Pillman

Anybody who knows me knows that I'm a fan of pro wrestling. I have been since around 1993 or so. And in those fourteen years, I've seen probably hundreds of different gimmicks come and go from different promotions. But one of my favorite characters of all-time has to be Brian Pillman's "loose cannon" gimmick.

I bring this up because I just finished watching the first disc of the WWE-produced DVD set about Pillman, which I got in the mail today from Netflix. Why I don't own it yet, I have no idea. Of course, there's at least a dozen WWE DVDs that I really need to add to my collection, but haven't gotten around to them for one reason or another. But thanks for offering the Pillman DVD, Netflix. You rock. And roll. All night long. And most of the day too.

But back to my original point. Pillman's "loose cannon" gimmick is one of my favorite wrestling characters ever; his ECW debut and the gun angle are two moments that I remember with great fondness. The gimmick was way ahead of its time, absolute brilliance if you ask me. And while I love, love, love the "loose cannon" character, I'm also very happy to see them give the Hollywood Blondes the credit that they should have gotten back then. I didn't get to see a whole lot of the Hollywood Blondes since I didn't really get into WCW until right around the time they broke up, but I do remember them being great in the ring and deserving of a lot more than what WCW gave them. That "Flare For The Old" segment alone, which I had never seen prior to seeing this DVD, is proof enough of that.

While I'm relatively familiar with most of Pillman's story, the feature documentary is still a very awesome watch. I think Pillman was to pro wrestling what Andy Kaufman was to comedy; with both of them, you never knew what was real and what was an act. The gimmick was solid gold, which only makes me wonder how things would have gone had Pillman not mangled his leg in that car accident before WWE hired him. The official statement was that he died of arteriosclerotic heart disease, but part of me wonders just how much of a toll all the painkillers he was hooked on took on him.

Of course, I'm giving the DVD a thumbs-up, and I haven't even seen the second disc yet. (It's currently #1 on my Netflix queue, so I'll be watching it soon.) It's a definite recommendation to every wrestling fan, especially fans that are new to the game. So why are you still reading this? Go buy it already.

I've Got A Jar Of Dirt

So let's start May off with a new review, shall we? I've finished off that review of Pirates of the Caribbean 2, which you can check out here. I'm going to get back to watching Veronica Mars, so have fun reading the review.

Back Into The Thick Of Things

Welcome to the month of May, dear readers, and welcome to the Matt Sutton Experience. I'm expecting this month to be a good one, since in for weeks or so, I'll be celebrating a quarter-century upon this spinning blue rock we call Earth. So I'm expecting all the posts this month to be a little more upbeat. Not that all my posts are downers or anything, but you know what I mean.

And just because I'm addicted to it, I've jumped into Resident Evil 4 for the tenth time. I'm currently at the part where you have to play as Ashley, and I think I'm making pretty decent time. I probably could have made a little bit better time if, after the Night of the Living Dead cabin near the beginning, I hadn't decided to take both sides of the fork in the road to boost my body count. I guess I'm trying to top my last number of 1,003 victims. Why I'm picking up the game so soon after beating it the last time, I'm not exactly sure. Other than having way too much fun playing it, that is. But I think I'm going let it cool off after I get through it this time. Ten is a pretty good number, I think.

I'd say that I'm hoping to fly through the game, but considering it'll probably take me a grand total of at least three hours to play through the island and the rest of the castle, so "flying through it" might be a bit of an overstatement. I might get through it over the next two or three days, depending on how much of the game I play in each sitting. And I'm still surprised I played the entire island all at once last week, too. But anyway, I'm sure that I'll have that big tenth Resident Evil 4 victory in no time. So I've got that to look forward to this week.

More on that as it happens.