A movie with zombies starring a bunch of geeks. This movie will be a classic in the future.
All you need to know about the plot is that it's prom night and there are zombies lurking about. Put the two together and you have Dance of the Dead.
There are several factors that make this an instant classic.
One of the things that stand out the most are the characters. Unlike other horror movies that hire 20 to 30-something year olds who look or act nothing like teens, in DotD you really get a genuine feeling that these are teenagers, both from their mannerisms and their dialogue. Also, unlike shitfests such as Joy Ride 2 the characters don't need to declare what kind of categories they fall into (ie. that emo-punk wuss in JR2). Instead, you can tell that a character is more emotional by the things he says and the things he does.
The characters are well defined. Sure they are a bunch of highschool stereotypes, but they really do it well. There are science nerds, geeks, athletes, rockers, and so forth. What makes the movie fun is that you really get a feel for these guys as they go through their adventure with zombies. The zaniest character would have to be the seemingly ex-military gym teacher. He seems like an asshole at first, but when he re-emerges later on, he explodes back on to the screen with a burst of awesomeness.
A big plus to the movie is that the filmmakers understood that it was low-budget, so they had fun with it. It has a good balance of seriousness as well as campiness.
The effects are on par with what you'd expect from a DTV movie. I think my favourite effect in it was in a scene where a bunch of the characters are trying to get away from the graveyard, and as they're running, zombies explode out of their graves, fly right on to their feet, and start running after our heroes. It's a pretty awesome scene despite my hate for fast zombies (I'm an old school zombie fan, I love the slow ones).
The last thing that I will mention is that this is the third zombie movie I've seen with some zombie love in it. By zombie love I mean, a man zombie and a woman zombie show their affections to each other. I shant spoil what led to it, but it filled me with giddiness to see zombies embrace.
Anyhow, like I said, we have a winner. This movie rules on multiple levels. This is definitely a fun one to watch with a bunch of friends on Halloween. Peace out geeks.
What a failure this was. An EPIC FAILURE~! And I'll tell you why. This movie had everything going for it which was why it made the failure seem so huge. It had star power. It had a very competent director. The visual style was there. It had a simple storyline... a storyline that was basically fuck-proof because it's so basic. The effects (when there were any) were also pretty great. So where did they go wrong?
Pacing.
If the first two-thirds of the film was like the last third, I think it would have been a fine film. Not great by any means, but fine. I mean, there was hardly any action in the first hour. It was all talk and build up. Every 5 minutes I was saying to myself, "okay, something cool is gonna happen now". But it never came. I think had they added 2 or 3 big action sequences during that hour, that it would have helped the film breathe and flow better. I mean, didn't they realize that the source material was an action game?
Max Payne is based on the video game of the same name following the titular character as he searches for the killers of his family. The storyline in the movie was basically the same, although there were some obvious deviations (crooked corporations instead of gangs and mobs).
Although Marky-Mark's acting was the palest of comparisons to his performance in The Departed, I can forgive it only because in the game Max Payne, those performances were wooden. Ludacris was just a little more than a set decoration in various scenes. The first time he popped up on screen, the theater erupted in laughter (the same thing happened when my friend saw it last week). He's a fine actor, I think it wouldn't of hurt to give him a bit more screen time. Mila Kunis does her best to play a tough chick, but I just can't buy it. She's the scrawny little girl from that 70's Show, and she's too sweet to play the rugged girl. However, she was fine too.
Hats off to the set decorators, editors, and director of photography. They did quite a superb job of disguising Toronto as New York City. I kept looking for clear Canadian landmarks, but couldn't find any. I think I caught a brief glimpse of the Four Seasons Centre though. Oh yeah, and the obvious Bay Station at the beginning.
So in the end, I guess that's the grand tragedy of it all; the potential was all there, it was just squandered. This could have been great. They left the ending open for a sequel, but I have major doubts to whether they'd act on it. Until next time, later geeks.
Alas, Super Smash Bros. Brawl. Now, I'm not a big fan of the Smash Bros. series fan at all, and I after playing this game, that hasn't changed. In fact, this is only the first incarnation of the game that I've actually played. I think it's the simplistic nature of the game that passes me by. If you can mash buttons on a controller, then you're ready for Smash Bros. As a kid, I grew up on Street Fighter II: World Warrior as well as the original Mortal Kombat... games where key combinations were the road to victory. Random mashing just didn't cut it back then.
But I suppose the simple nature of the game appeals to a wider generation of audiences, something the Wii has excelled at since release.
I think the only thing I really liked from this game was the single player campaign, dubbed The Subspace Emissary. Basically it's an old-school side scroller, with a storyline that ties in all the available characters within the game. I finished the campaign on the normal mode, and it was still too easy. It's pretty fun and quick. The CGI work in the campaign were pretty darn great. The only complaint I really have is the last level, The Great Maze. It took almost 2 hours to beat this level, and it was not that it was difficult (I didn't wipe out once), it was just terribly long. I mean, to make a challenging last level, it doesn't have to be long... just hard (Note: as an aside, that's what she said).
However, when it's all said and done, it's still amusing to see characters across a wide range of games come together for a common cause. It's still wild to see Snake from Metal Gear Solid and Sonic the Hedgehog appear in a Nintendo game. It makes me wonder, how come they couldn't get Mega Man in? It would seem like a logical addition. Well... here's hoping he's in the future game(s).
I think the game is fun for kids, but as for us older geeks, we might wanna stick to Tekken, Soul Calibur, or Street Fighter IV... huzzah! Later geekerinos!
Yes, a bit of a late slip. I went to see August Burns Red play at the Opera House almost 2 weeks ago. I went to a show in August with A Static Lullaby. The show must have drawn only 150 people tops (of approx. 500 capacity), and this from a band who was selling out shows 3 years ago. I thought the screamo/metalcore/post-hardcore scene was about over, but this show was evidence that it still has some legs.
The Opera House was jam packed, it was hot sweaty fun. The line-up included This or the Apocalypse, Greeley Estates, A Skylit Drive, Sky Eats Airplane, and of course headlined by August Burns Red. Admittedly, I only know a few songs from ABR, so I wasn't too familiar with them. I basically went to the show to see Greeley Estates and A Skylit Drive. The show didn't disappoint, the energy was pretty high all night.
Anyhow, you can check out some pictures from the show (here). Adiós geeks.
So I found a new TV show to follow this week: Life on Mars.
On the surface, it looks like another one of those police/crime drama replicas eg. CSI, NCIS, Cold Case, etc... I hate those shows! That is one of the reasons why I love Forgetting Sarah Marshall so much, in particular for their ongoing joke of mocking these shows with their faux crime drama Crime Scene: Scene of the Crime.
However, looks can be deceiving, as they say. The police/crime part is just a clever disguise to hide the fact that they are really a geeky-genre show. The first 10 minutes or so of the pilot is similar to any other police show; a bunch of cops stressed out over some generic case involving some generic kidnapper/murderer. One afternoon, after a raid, the main character's girlfriend gets kidnapped and his mind goes a little loopy. Amongst all the dizziness and confusion, he gets hit by a car, and passes out. When he wakes, he finds himself 35 years in the past, smack dab in the middle of 1973. He doesn't believe where he is... cue in the iconic imagery of the Twin Towers.
Throughout the episode, he receives subliminal messages from 2008. But is it all in his head? People around him don't seem to hear or see these messages.
What I like about the show so far is how the main character (or us, the audience) doesn't know if he is really in 1973 or is everything just a figment of his imagination. He decides that it's the latter, and that everything he sees or hears is a projection from his mind. However, so far, they've given evidence that it could be either, and I really hope they keep playing that up... never letting the audience know until the show comes to an end. I just love the time travel idea, there are so many possibilities.
The show stars Jason O'Mara, Michael Imperioli, and best of all, Harvey "the Bad-fuckin'-Lieutenant" Keitel! In other words, a bunch of badasses! There is also Gretchen Mol, who looks beautiful as a 70's closet-feminist policewoman, no doubt the future love interest for our main cop-dude.
The show is a US-remake of a British show of the same name and concept, produced in 2006.
Outside of prowrestling, I don't follow too many TV shows, however, this fall I'm glad to add Life on Mars to the list. It's on ABC every Thursday at 10 pm (I think). Or if you missed the first episode, I'm sure you can find a stream out there. Later geeks.
I've got a crapload of DTV reviews coming out within the next week or so. I don't know why, maybe because it's near Halloween, that companies shit out all these movies around this time. So I watched two this week, Joy Ride 2: Dead Ahead and Return to Sleepaway Camp. I had hopes (not high hopes) for both, as I enjoyed the first Joy Ride and loved, loved, LOVED, the original Sleepaway Camp, but like with most DTV affairs, I was quite let down.
Return to Sleepaway Camp
The first Sleepaway Camp was created obviously to milk off the success of other slasher flicks at the time, notably Friday the 13th. It was a complete low-rent production, complete with bad acting and bad dialogue. The saving grace in the movie came at the ending. Anyone who's seen this movie could not possibly forget the ending, it's one of those things you just can't unsee. However, if you need a reminder or a spoiler...
[Inviso-Text Spoilers (highlite with your mouse): The main character, Angela turned out to be the mystery killer... and turned out to be a boy!!! At the end, she does a full frontal on screen, with penis fully exposed. She had a knife in one hand, a boy's decapitated head on another, a body by her feet, with shock/crazy music in the background. I couldn't stop saying 'holy shit' when it happened. It was crazy.End Spoiler.]
Although there were a few sequels after the original, Return to Sleepaway Camp was treated as a direct sequel to the first movie. Interestingly enough, after 25 years, the original director returned to take the helm.
In short, the movie was about a boy named Alan who was spending his summer at a camp. He was constantly picked on by his fellow campers which led to a series of grisly murders... only we don't know for sure if Alan was the culprit. Basically, the movie is an hour and half of watching this kid getting picked on, while a few camp counselors wonder if it could be the homicidal maniac, Angela, from the first movie.
Man, this movie sucked. The acting was horrendous, the script was bad, the plot was awful, the kills sucked... this movie had nothing going for it. The main character Alan though he was picked on all the time, was totally unsympathetic. He was quite an asshole, so it basically justified all the mistreatment. Another thing that was annoying was that there were a whole bunch of characters that would just randomly disappear through out the movie. They were never killed, nor were they ever hinted at being killed (even if offscreen), so there's no resolution to a whole lot of them. Even the one girl who feels sorry for him, and it's hinted that she may be the murderer, disappears herself. I mean, she seems like an important character, in that she appears to be Alan's only friend.
There were only two things that stood out in this movie: 1. when Alan called the head camp counselor a "Big Pussy" (he was played by Vincent Pastore... aka. 'Big Pussy' Salvatore from The Sopranos), 2. the chef was played by Issac Hayes (aka. Chef from South Park). This was clearly aimed towards us geeks. There ends the good points.
Joy Ride 2: Dead Ahead
There were zero redeeming factors in this movie.
The premise was similar to the first movie. A trucker named Rusty Nails stalks a bunch of young adults as they had "borrowed" his car without permission. I guess he was angry about that. He attempts to pluck them off one by one as well as any innocent bystanders in the way. I heard being a trucker is hard work, and I suppose it could make you into a looney killer.
The original Joy Ride was good because it played more like a suspense-thriller and it really had your heart pumping. Two of the characters, Steve Zahn's and Leelee Sobieski's were quite sympathetic too, so we could feel for them. For its DTV sequel, they hired a bunch of Z-list no-namers, with acting skills of what you'd expect from a DTV movie. For this sequel they leaned more towards the horror end of things, with a few gory kills, but not many. Unlike the first movie, there just isn't that same sense of dread or suspense. Plus all the characters are pretty much douche-bags so we couldn't care less whether they lived or died.
There was obviously a disconnect between the director and the material. There was one dude who outright said, if you'd like to use labels, you can call me an emo-punk. This guy was in no way "emo", but perhaps he was because he had 2 lip piercings and he mentioned Myspace. Apparently, that makes you "emo". Now, I've been to dozens and dozens of emo concerts, and I've never seen a dude like that. The only label I'd throw on this guy would be the Douche label, yes, with a capital D.
Fortunately for JR2, they are backed by 20th Century Fox, so no doubt we'll hear about this movie, and in fact I've seen the commercial for it numerous times on TV this week. But it's just sad to see another studio produced piece of shit. I mean, I'm sure there are hundreds of young movie makers out there with far more talent who would jump at the opportunity for a few million bucks to make a movie... And I'm sure it'd be more decent.
The Midnight Meat Train. Oh yes, you heard right. The title sounds deceivingly like that of a really bad porn movie, but fear not horror fans and gorehounds, this flick delivers.
The movie follows a photographer named Leon who while using the nightlife of a city for his next project, unravels a mystery involving subway passengers who would disappear in the middle of the night. Leon's pursuits puts him on the trail of a serial killer named Mahogany, who stalks and kills the late night travellers. Soon after, Leon becomes obsessed with the whole mystery and with stopping the killer, but is in more shit than he's aware of.
The Midnight Meat Train is probably one of the better American-produced horror movies I've seen in the last few years. But I guess that isn't saying too much, as more than half the shit these days are just remakes of classics or of foreign versions. The movie feels fresh and original, and thanks to the short run time and high action, it never feels tired.
I had a few small problems with the movie. You know how sometimes in movies, a character will get obsessed with some sort of mystery, leading into madness, and they get crazier as the plot progresses? Well, the way the movie played out made it seem like only one or two days before Leon descended into madness. My sister watched this movie with me, and when the madness scene hit, we looked at each other and said the same thing: "he's crazy already?".
There's also a scene in the middle where Leon is captured by Mahogany, but for some strange reason he's allowed to live. I was thinking, shit, that's a pretty big plot hole... he kills everyone but lets Leon live? However, at the end of the movie, everything is resolved. There is quite a twist at the end. My sister didn't like it, but I thought it was an interesting concept.
Gorehounds will especially love the flick for all the blood, guts, and creative kills that make it on screen. However, one thing that bothered me was the CG blood and effects used. In horror movies, I've always enjoyed practical effects over its CG-counterpart, but that might just be a preference thing. It doesn't take away from the fun-ness of the kills, so you don't have to worry about that.
The film is stacked with a bunch of semi-relevant actors such as Brad Cooper, Leslie Bibb, Brooke Shields, and Vinnie Jones as Mahogany. Ivan Raimi makes a cameo in the middle of the movie, much to the delight of my geek senses. The acting isn't terrific, but it's on par of what you'd expect of a horror movie.
To my surprise, it was Ryuhei Kitamura who had directed it. I've been a fan of his work for years, ever since I first saw Versus, the cult-favourite, low-budget, high-action, zombie-flick. Years later he made the supposed last Godzilla movie ever, Godzilla: Final Wars, unfortunately to less fan fare. Kitamura is quite a beloved director in the geek community. Listening to his interviews, you can tell that his style is definitely influenced by American cinema. This movie marks his first foray into American movies, and thankfully is a smooth transition as compared to other asian directors who have tried to do the same (Hideo Nakata... Takashi Shimizu... Pang Brothers... I'm looking in your direction). I think it's his understanding and appreciation of Hollywood that has helped adapt his own unique style into an American film.
Another cool thing that I didn't know until the credits hit was that the original story was scribed by Clive Barker, a short story in the first Books of Blood.
Unforunately, the film went through distribution hell in the hands of Lionsgate, with a release in August in only 102 theaters. It's a shame because this was a really good horror movie that only a few people will have seen. The least they could have done was hold off for a much wider release around the Halloween season.
My friends, if you are a horror fan, I ask you to check out this movie. I guarantee its better than any of the Saw sequels that you've wasted your hard-earned money on. Give'er a try! Peace out geeks!
Not too long ago, two of my friends had posted their thoughts on evolution and creationism. Both friends shared similar sentiments on the topic (you can view Skylar's here and Keith's here). Coincidence or not, shortly before they made their postings, I purchased a book called The Science of God by Dr. Gerald Schroeder, which was based on the same topic. Unfortunately, at the time of my friend's postings, I had not finished the book, but now I have.
In The Science of God, Schroeder attempts to debunk the dichotomy that exists between science/evolution and creationism. He tries to show that there can exist a duality between the two and that discoveries in science actually prove the story of creation in the bible.
The book can be roughly divided into three categories that being the concepts of time, the second with the biology of evolution, and lastly the concept of free will.
In describing time, he focuses on the 6 days that are explained in the beginning of Genesis. During the inception of the earth, the physics of the world was in such a way that time was able to slow down. The days that are described in Genesis are equal to 24 hours as we understand it, but billions of years are represented within it. He clarifies the description by using simple quantum mechanics. Without getting into Einstein-isms, remember that example in high school physics, the one about twins, where one would stay on earth, and the other would fly in a rocket ship that moved at the speed of light? Say the rocket boy was only in space for an hour relative to himself, but on earth, many years would pass and his brother would be much older. The same can be applied to the days described in Genesis. Furthermore, because of those physics, time as we understand it works like a decaying exponential curve, where those first days represented millions and billions of years relative to how we understand time now, but as 'days' go by, the amount of time represented in a day tapered off (it hit its asymptote) and is calibrated to how we measure time today.
In a chapter about evolution, he describes how the order of creation as described in the bible, parallels the theories of science on the order of evolution. An interesting comparison he makes is between the human eyeball and the eyeball of an octopus. Here we have two creatures that are so different, yet all the components that make up their eyeball are essentially the same. He explains that the statistical probability of this occuring for two separate creatures are so low that it might as well be zero chance.
He gives us a treat at the end, concluding the book with a chapter on dinosaurs and their possible existence. But I shan't spoil that for you, my fellow geeks.
These are of course but a few of the things he talks about in his book. Schroeder himself is a physicist who gained his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. from MIT. But for the past 25 years he has been studying the interpretation of the bible.
I think as an engineering graduate, I can appreciate some of his explanations. To explain some of his theories, he uses established mathematical formulas; some from thermodynamics (I was pleasantly surprised by my old friend, the Arrhenius equation) but mostly from statistics. One thing Schroeder does well is explaining their meanings and uses in laymans terms, so if you were not of a mathematical or scientific background, you could still understand what's going on.
Right now, I'm not sure if I'm convinced on these theories. I respect the perspective, find they are coherent, and they are certainly plausible, but I mean, as Christians, we believe in a God that someway somehow came down to earth, died, and came back to life... what? Death to life. If we are to believe this, then is it a stretch to believe that the description in Genesis is literal? I mean, He is a God of wonders and of miracles, so I can't doubt the possibility of His works.
Sometimes it seems as though we ask these questions and try to fill that void by applying what we know of earth through science, math, etc., in some way to satiate our own curiosity. But we should not forget what the Lord says in Isaiah 55:8-9:
"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither your ways my ways," declares the Lord. "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts..."
I will end this post with a quote from Schroeder:
"Randomness just doesn't cut it when it comes to generating meaningful order out of chaos. Direction is required. Always."
Lately I've been thinking to myself that there hasn't really been many great movies this year. There's been a few good ones, but only one really great one, that being The Dark Knight. In my head I was starting to compile my top 10 list for the year thus far and had some difficulty even filling in the ranks of the top 3. There are a few I'm wildly anticipating over the next 3 months, but whether they'll hold up to scrutiny remains to be determined. Which brings me to The Fall.
The first thing I should mention is that as I was looking for reviews for The Fall, I found that there was quite a backlash from amongst the geek community for Tarsem's first feature, The Cell with JLo. Overnight, geeks criticized it for being too hollow and "visually arresting". They claimed that he was pretentious both by representing himself by one name and delivering something artistic-for-artistry's sake.
I remember my brother coming home after seeing it in the theater, and telling me how much he loved it. A few months later, we rented the flick on good ol' VHS and after watching it, I didn't find myself as enamoured with it as my brother was, but I thought at least it looked really cool. I don't think during that time I've watched anything like it before.
With The Fall, I believe Tarsem has fully redeemed himself. Believe it or not, this is only his second feature.
The movie takes place during the 1920's and is about a young girl, Alexandria, in a hospital who befriends a stuntman named Roy, who is there as a result of an accident while shooting a movie. Roy keeps her on the edge of her seat by telling her this epic drawn-out tale bit by bit everyday. With every favour she completes for him, Roy tells her a bit more. Throughout the movie, we're seeing this grand adventure through the eyes of the young girl, every detail as she would imagine it.
The tale itself is about a team of 5 adventurers: a masked Bandit, an Indian, an Ex-Slave, an Italian Explosives Expert, and... Charles Darwin. Shortly they are joined by a mysterious character only refered to as The Mystic (actually none of the characters are named, they're just refered to by their titles). Together they embark on a journey to kill The Governor, of course all for their own motives.
What makes it interesting is that as Roy is telling the story, his and even Alexandria's emotions bleed into the story as it's being told. When they are happy, the story is happy, when they are feeling sad, the story takes a turn. At the end of the movie, there is almost a Wizard-of-Oz-like-feel. I'm not sure if it's a direct nod to that movie, but you can tell there is obviously some sort of influence.
Another movie I was reminded of while watching it was The Usual Suspects. In both movies, you have a team comprised of unique individuals, each with their own talents or gifts, as they work together to accomplish a common goal. However, don't expect a twist a la Usual Suspects.
I read one review that claimed the plot was weak compared to the fantastic visual style. I have to disagree. In context of the movie, it all makes sense. You have a grown man telling an 8-year old girl a story so of course the plot has to be simple or else she wouldn't understand it.
In terms of the unique artistic style, that as well made sense in context of the movie. It's Roy who tells the story, yet everything we see onscreen is how Alexandria interprets it. Everything is colourful, vibrant, and wildly imaginative, just as a young child's imagination would be. The kicker comes at the end of the movie where they show a few glimpses of how Roy actually imagines it. It just feels awesome because you realize afterwards that during the whole movie this is what he was imagining, while at the same time we were seeing something totally different.
Tarsem's eye for visuals is second to none. I mean, love it or hate it, but The Cell was quite revolutionary in its art direction. In The Fall, he uses a similar palette in painting the world we see during the storytelling portions. What's more astounding was that he was able to achieve all this without the aid of CGI which is so commonplace these days (scroll down to view the trailer while keeping that in mind).
All the locations were quite beautiful as well. If I read correctly, it took Tarsem approximately 4 years to complete this movie, which was shot over 28 different countries. Despite the wide array of locations, he was able to cut and make the film in such a way that everything looked different, but at the same time, everything felt together. There was a strong sense of cohesiveness based on all the sceneries alone.
The last thing I should note was the acting. Everyone did quite a magnificent job, and for a cast of relatively unknown players, this was a great accomplishment. Much of the credit must go to Catinca Untaru who played Alexandria. She played the role well of being curious and adorable at the same time. This was her first and only movie, and apparently, before shooting this movie, she had hardly spoken any english.
I've attached the [God forsaken] Youtube trailer to the end of this post, but if you want better quality, check out the Quicktime version (here). The trailer is a bit more spoilerish than I would of liked, but thankfully it only gives you a brief glimpse of all the beauty that lies within.
This is definitely a candidate for #1 on my list, however I'm still undecided as Batman was pretty kick-ass this year. Anyhow, check out The Fall on DVD or BD if you can, this movie is simply gorgeous and well told. Later geeks.
"Week 2" of Survivor collected the events during Days 7-9. During this episode, Fang seemed to have gotten their shit together as they won both challenges. Usually (but not always) you can tell which tribe is going to tribal council because the episode will focus more on that team. And so when they kept going back to team Kota, I got suspicious. They are still quite a generic team. I don't know any of the names of the women, but I know 3 names of the guys: Ace the irritating and arrogant photographer, Charlie the token gay dude, and Bob the awesome physics teacher old guy. There was some tension in team Kota as Ace was telling everyone what to do and it just rubbed people the wrong way.
The reward challenge was a game where one of your tribemates would cling on to a pole, while two of the opposing tribe members would attempt to pull you off and drag you to the finish line. The first team to 2 points would be declared winner. The game wasn't that exciting actually, but what I did enjoy was that it showed how Crystal would be a prominent player in the game. Her strength and endurance showed as she helped pull the team to victory. One of the low-lites of the challenge was that it showed GC not pulling his weight in that he was taking rests during the challenge.
The immunity challenge highlighted 2 of my picks mentioned last week, Crystal and Ken. Basically the challenge involved a slip n' slide relay race where you'd gather puzzle parts at the end of each leg. Once all the pieces were gathered, one designated player, the puzzle solver, would then attempt to unveil a code that would lead to victory. Crystal started off for the Fang team, and her athletic prowess really showed. She was leaps and bounds ahead of the opposing team's member, but unfortunately, the player right after Crystal was slow, and Kota caught up. Fuckers.
The last portion of the challenge was solving a mathematical puzzle, and it was a classic battle of the wits between the young savvy Super Smash Bros. champion against the aging physics teacher/old school boyscout... awesome. Pitting two of the awesomest people against each other was a bit tough to watch, only because I did want both to win. But of course, I had to stick by my boy Ken, and he did not fail. His geek skills proved worthy.
At tribal council, Kota ended up voting out Paloma, a young latin american girl and a certifiable cutie pie at that. She was actually the team's only non-caucasian member, so now the alpha team is complete.
The preview for next week's episode was greatness. It showed a 3 person alliance amongst my exact 3 choices last week: Ken, Crystal, GC. I was filled with glee during the short clip, but at the same time was a bit in fear because there are 7 people left on their tribe, yet their alliance is only 3.... they need 4 to swing the vote. As well, if it is true that they are forming an alliance, chances are, if one of them goes, they'll be picked off one by one. But we shall see. Later geeks.
I won tickets to an early screening of Religulous and took my brother to watch it earlier tonight. The film was directed by Larry Charles (of Seinfeld, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and Borat fame), but clearly this was the Bill Maher show.
The movie follows Maher as he treks around the world trying to find out why people believe what they do. He is basically questioning them as to why they are so certain, as he himself tries to promote doub.t The movie primarily focuses on western religions, but in the latter half he tries to do a lightning round with other faiths (ie. Scientology, Mormonism, Islam, etc).
He interviews a bevy of loony characters to ensure laughs, and oftentimes with a smug and arrogant flair. In that sense, the movie works as it balances with more serious talks as he learns about other religions. But more often than not, the discussions are with wacky people rather than learned professionals.
One of the high points for me was a scene in a London park where he pretended to be a Scientologist fanatic. He barked out various Scientology tenets to the bewildered crowd, before a gentleman, who probably thought he was crazy, placed a balloon crown on his head. Random and hilarious.
My main problem was that he had all these good and deep questions, but he never really brought them forth to experts. Instead, he would ask these questions to oddball characters ie. the Jesus actor an amusement park, a pot smoking preacher in Amsterdam, bunch of people at a trailer truck church, a wacky Vatican priest, etc. Had he asked more well-versed professionals, I think it would have been more insightful. However, I understand that he was trying to insert a comedic tone to it, so I can partly forgive him. I guess, I just wish that it had been deeper.
And that's another thing, the comedy bits. The way the interviews were cut was in such a fashion that you knew it was manipulated to try and make the interviewee look like a dumbass. The cuts didn't seem seemless and hurt the flow. I did laugh during the movie, but there were no huge big laughs, and the reaction with the audience seemed lukewarm at best.
Lastly, and this is more of a preference, I wish that more time had been devoted to talk about other religions. I'd say more than half the time was used on Christianity and Catholicism. Since he was going for humour, I would of liked to see more of those strange and wacky religions. He did interview the leader at this one "church" where the leader claimed to be the second coming of Jesus. WACKY! According to the accompanying text, this church had over 100,000 followers worldwide.
As a Christian, I thought going in that I was going to be offended, however I was not. I've watched a bunch of his standup comedy stuff as well as a bunch of his late night talk show appearances, where he seemed more racy than in this movie. After it's all said and done, I'd have to say thumbs in the middle. It made me laugh at parts, but was not wholly satisfying. Later geeks.
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We have a winner!
