Saturday, April 18, 2009

Danger! High Voltage!

With "Super Saturday 2" finally out of the way, I decided to head out to the theaters to see Crank: High Voltage. I loved the first Crank movie, so I was really looking forward to the sequel. And while it's not as good as the original, I thought it was a lot of fun.

Crank 2 is silly, over the top, and absolutely insane. And that's exactly why it's so entertaining. A scene where Jason Statham and another actor have a fight that imitates classic Godzilla movies, with rubber masks and cheap cardboard sets? That's in the movie. A scene where Statham gets knocked out and hallucinates that his younger self is on a talk show discussing his reckless behavior? Sure, okay. A scene reminiscent of the over-the-top sex scene from Team America: World Police? You better believe it. It's unbelievable and hilarious and exciting, and I couldn't have enjoyed it more. So on my usual star rating scale, I'd put Crank: High Voltage at three and a half stars and give it a thumbs up.

Unless I end up going to see State of Play, which looks really good, it'll be two weeks before anything I'd be interested in hits theaters. Those two weeks are going to be so boring, I just know it.

Super Saturday 2

If you've been following this blog for the last year or so, you've seen me hyping a project titled "Super Saturday 2," the sequel to a similar project I did back in 2005. And after literally eleven months of work, I've finally finished it. The final tally: twenty films...
  1. Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007)
  2. Spider-Man 3 (2007)
  3. Iron Man (2008)
  4. The Incredible Hulk (2008)
  5. Punisher: War Zone (2008)
  6. Blade (1998)
  7. Blade II (2002)
  8. Blade: Trinity (2004)
  9. Nick Fury: Agent of SHIELD (1998)
  10. Howard the Duck (1986)
  11. Man-Thing (2005)
  12. Swamp Thing (1982)
  13. The Return of Swamp Thing (1989)
  14. The Dark Knight (2008)
  15. Steel (1997)
  16. Spawn (1997)
  17. Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008)
  18. The Rocketeer (1991)
  19. Hancock (2008)
  20. Superhero Movie (2008)

I'd had a few other movies lined up, but after a while, I decided that twenty was a nice even number to stop at. Those movies I'd had lined up - The Spirit and Watchmen - are going to be moved to other projects. The Spirit will be part of an eventual double feature with Dick Tracy, while Watchmen is going to be part of a marathon of reviews of movies based on Alan Moore's comic books. These projects won't be too soon, but they'll happen eventually.

I'm just happy to finally have this "Super Saturday 2" crap finally done. And I'll be happy to finally move on and concentrate on other movies. I'm surprised I ever got those reviews of Silent Night, Deadly Night and Jackass Number Two done in the meantime. I've got a few reviews lined up in the future, but they won't happen for at least a month or two. Maybe next time I try one of these really huge projects, I'll stagger out their releases instead of holding onto all of them for a year. This sort of thing can be tiring if you let it get to you.

But have fun reading all of those reviews. If there's ever a "Super Saturday 3," here's hoping that it doesn't take me another year.

Saturday, April 11, 2009

Observing And Reporting

It's been a little while, but I finally got back into my traditional routine of weekend trips to the movies. It might not last long, since there's only two movies coming out this month that I'm interested in. (But the summer season will be upon us soon enough.) But anyway, this weekend's excursion was to go see Seth Rogan's new flick Observe and Report. Or as I like to call it, "Paul Blart: Mall Cop for grownups."

The final verdict is that it was really, really funny. The plot isn't exactly a cohesive narrative, and there's a few scenes that feel like filler. But Rogan is hilarious, and Anna Faris and Ray Liotta pitch in with some funny work too. So on the whole, I thought the movie was a great comedy that utilizes its R-rating to the fullest. I'll totally give it four stars on my scale of five.

It's kind of a shame that Observe and Report had to come out on the same weekend as Hannah Montana: The Movie, though, because it's going to get annihilated at the box office. And that's a shame too, since while Miley Cyrus is a horrible actress. But I guess that sort of thing will happen, right?

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Monster Killing Is My Game

Since I haven't had the opportunity to play Resident Evil 5, and I probably won't until I can get my Xbox 360 fixed, I decided to go back to the old standby of Resident Evil 4. I hadn't picked it up in a while, so I decided to jump back into it last week.

I actually beat the game just a few minutes ago. The final tally: 989 monsters dead, with no deaths befalling yours truly. The total running time was seven hours, 49 minutes, and 47 seconds. The time probably would have been a bit shorter, but I had to look up the solution for one of the game's puzzles. I'm pretty sure that pausing the game doesn't pause the game clock, which really sucks.

But yeah, I beat Resident Evil 4 again. I either need to go buy some new games or start playing the old Resident Evil games again.