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Reviews
Jem and the Holograms (2015)
I'm sorry for the actors
It's a shame whoever made the final call in naming the movie would try to steal fame from some old 80s cartoon to sell their movie and in the process sabotage their own ratings via false advertising. However, as they say, there's a lot in a name, so I don't feel too bad for the low rating. This is basically Jem and the Holograms, reinvented, because we were to lazy to think of another title. If they had made it just like the Cartoon, it would probably have actually been pretty awesome. This is more like a lifetime movie that stole it's name from an 80s cartoon. If your looking or something meaningless to plop your kids down in front of, this would be a choice.
Fat Guys in the Woods (2014)
One of the best survival shows on right now
This beats out Naked and Afraid and Dual Survival for actual real life survival tips and the format and host is more enjoyable than Remote Survival. Creek is pretty good and really could carry a more versatile show.His tips are practical and made for real life situations and people, not dramatized ratings grabbing BS.
Where the show lacks is the setting. It's a low budget show made for very out of shape people to complete, so I doubt we'll see very challenging terrain and due to that I'm not sure the show has a long term future, but it's still good for now.
Creek does a good job of balancing survival with the less interesting motivational aspects of the show, but most importantly is he just has good, straight forward advice and tips. It's not an exciting backdrop with huge cliffs and white water rapids, but it's still a very fun show and watching people overcome some of their issues isn't so bad.
I think Creek has a good TV persona and could easily carry a more robust survival show. Plus he isn't out hunting Bigfoot. I'd like to see him put in a more versatile format since Fat Guys In The Woods is ultimately a pretty narrow focus.
I will say I think the shows title is a bad idea and too focuses on merely being fat. Truth be told, fat or not, if you're not used to manual labor and you go out into the wild, it's going to be hard. You'd be better off as a fat guy who does labor than a skinny guy who works at a desk all day. It also limits the show to generally just people who are overweight.
A better take on the idea would be to focus on people with sedentary lifestyles in general. Not all of them would have to be fat, because most skinny people are also out of shape also and most people in developed countries in general lack mental toughness. I think the title may be off putting to some people, but the show does have some very practical tips and Creek smartly uses trapping often, which is less dramatic, but far more practical and efficient.
I also like that the show doesn't spend much time on obstacle challenges like so many other survival shows. There is no entertainment value in watching people wade through swamps or slowly crawl over mangroves. It's mostly just about finding a good camp, building shelters, getting fire, water and food.
Sons of Winter (2015)
It's just more fake survival
The premise sounds good enough. The eldest sons of a family 'living off the land' go out on their own to 'become men' and see if they can make it 90 days out in the wild.
The problem, well like most of these fake survival shows, they have ALL the modern conveniences possible. They have snowmobiles, 6 wheel ATVs, chain saws, rifles and unlimited ammo (they need it too because they are bad shots). They also happen to make their camp at what appears to be a brand new cabin, which I suspect was built just for the show.
Supposedly the family lives on the land and makes the money to buy all this along with all their other supplies for their actual home primarily from trapping. They are always claiming how disconnected they are, but they live on a road with a mailbox and a school bus drops their kids off. They are certainly exaggerating quite a lot. Those ATVs and snowmobiles are thousands of dollars and upkeep on them is also no joke. They have modern clothes and access basically to anything you can get at Walmart.
Still, I give the show a shot because the premise itself still seems good and a 90 day survival show would be a welcome change from the BS we currently have being marketed as survival.
The problem is the show really isn't about the 'Sons' of Winter. Instead of focusing on the two sons like the title would suggest the show constantly jumps back to the house and the father where we see them setup traps and do basic chores. The father has a tendency of constantly repeating the same lines over and over and let us remember he moved to the wild, it's his second home, not his first. Yet he seems quite sure of himself on all walks, of course in relation to how stupid the two sons act, I can see why he might be arrogant.
In either case, the show does not deliver it's basic premise well enough. There is no real focus on the 90 day survival task, rather they split the show up and just randomly jump back and forth between the boys out in the brand new cabin with their chain saws and ATV and the rest of the family back home, the 2nd part being especially boring.
It's really just another wilderness soap opera, not a survival show. Fat Guys in the Woods, for instance, offers a lot more survival and education on the wilderness than this show, which tends to focus on social interaction more than wilderness survival.
Like all these shows, they lie to you about exactly where all those cool toys the family has comes from. Many of these people have other jobs where they make their money for their snowmobiles, tractors, and bulldozers and so on and so forth. They also exaggerate how cut off most of these places are, many of which are just a short drive from a major city and a Walmart. Then they try to sell you on how one with nature these people are.. using their chainsaws and snow mobiles and brand new shiny modern tools.
I've watched several episodes hoping the show would move it's focus to the kids survival plot, but it keeps jumping back to the trapping business that supposedly is the heart and soul of the families income. The father is just an annoying character that probably says things like.. 'if you make a a mistake out here YOU DIE' like 5 times in every episode just to keep the dramatic element alive. You can't help but think, well if that's the case then how is your dumb ass still alive.
The wilderness is dangerous, but they don't live in the real wilderness and they have full access to every modern convenience they can buy, which seems to be quite a lot. This show is almost as bad/fake as Alaskan Bush People, but it's not quite that over the top. The idea is the same though and the kids do dumb things to keep the show exciting while the dad tries to act like some 'holier than thou' character doing what he can just to keep his family alive on the brink of pioneer country. Of course in reality they have roads, electric, cars and major cities close enough that the only pioneering really being done here is to push the boundaries of survival show BS.
Living in a cabin with guns, tons of ammo, ATVs and snowmobiles. That's not survival, it's more like a vacation that lots of people pay thousands of dollars to experience. Sure, it requires some work, but game is plentiful, ammo is seemingly unlimited, they have a really nice pre-built shelter and plenty of traps and supplies. So far I haven't seen anything remotely like wilderness survival in this show. It's more like a sensationalized hunting and logging show.
Snowpiercer (2013)
Horrible
The plot is ridiculously bad yet the movie is almost done as if it's somehow serious. The acting is bad, the sound work is not good, the camera work is OK.
This movie really has nothing going for it at all other than people like trains and end of the world scenarios. Beyond that the plot is something a child might come up with, completely unsupported by any kind of common sense or science this train hurdles onward, through snow, as if somehow the only way to survive cold is in a moving train.
For me, something like an underground shelter might make this movie a lot more believable. The idea they are on some magic train piercing through the snow is just stupid. Trains don't actually really just go throw thick snow and why would you have to? Why not take whatever powers the train and just make an underground shelter with it? The movie never really explains why anyone would want to stay on the train in such bad conditions nor why anyone would want all those people on the train since they serve no real use or purpose. The entire poor vs wealthy uprising vibe they have going makes no sense because they don't need the poor people there to run the train, why waste food on them and risk losing control? More importantly though, why perpetually drive a train through snow and constantly risk derailing while trapping yourself in a small space with limited resources. On top of all that there is no way a track would survive a massive climate shift like this. It would be covered or destroyed by such dramatic climate shift as well as face constant avalanches.
It's like the movie Speed on a train with a climate apocalypse setting but on a real low budget, without good directing, much worse acting and with a less believable storyline.
It should be rated around 3-4, but for some reason this is some weird cult following boosting the rating of this horrible movie. It's much worse than The Colony, which made no sense either, but still made vastly more sense than a perpetual snow train.
The only thing it has going for it is that it's so weird and makes so little sense you may keep watching it in hope of closure, which you will not get.