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Sliders: New Gods for Old (1999)
Worst episode so far.
I've been going through a play-through of all the episodes recently. I loved the show when it first aired until the 3rd season when the professor left. I stopped watching after that.
So far, I can honestly say I enjoyed a majority of the episodes until this one. Some really great ones and some really downright bad, but this takes the cake.
I don't get it. Is the idea that we are all supposed to be miserable our entire lives? Here's something that can cure what ails you and not just the physical ailments. Your mental state improves as well.
Sign me up. This episode really missed the mark.
Later, mortals.
Tin Star (2017)
Good stuff.
Overall, I enjoyed the series. My biggest gripe was that it wasn't what I wanted it to be, a murder mystery. It would have been a more traditional plot but one where it was easier to root for someone.
Almost everyone in the show has a serious problem and it's difficult to like them. Addicts, murderers, TEENAGERS!
The first part takes us into a hole of misery. The depths which one can go with alcohol addiction. If this show taught me anything, it's that Tim Roth would drink me under the table and then do a juggling act afterwards with knives.
The latter part really pulls at your emotions. Sort of. You begin to empathize with people you shouldn't. Or should I? I couldn't get passed that. I was left a bit torn.
I suppose that's why I liked the show. It left an impression on me. Flawed? Yeah. It really tried to mix a few too many "genres". It had Tarantino, Lynch and the Coen Brothers combined.
Give it a go if you're on the fence. You'll know what you're getting into by episode 2 or 3.
Fire City: End of Days (2015)
Not bad.
The story had some issues and at times reminded me of a late night HBO flick. There were certain aspects I really wish they had cut out and perhaps elaborated a bit more on others. Even though we spend most of our time with the demons, I never really felt close to any of them with the exception of the main character. I'd have liked to have seen more WHY.
What really made the film were the costumes. Nightbreed kept popping into my head as I watched. That's something I give a lot of weight to in a film and for the most part, they were done well. Especially when it came to Vine.
Another pro of the film for me was the acting. I just kept hoping for a better, more cohesive story.
Dune (2000)
Oh yeah.
This is the Sci-Fi channel I miss and loved. A time when you'd finish watching this and a show like Lex would come on. The story itself is really solid and with its length is able to explore Dune as it was meant to be. But unlike its predecessor from 1984, the graphics do not hold up. I can easily get lost in the visual imagery from the 1984 version to this day... but this adaptation?
I recall being much more wowed when it first aired. I think some of that has to do with the time. When this was released, there weren't a lot of shows that were so extravagant in the set pieces. Star Trek being an exception along with Farscape. If I were to equate the set pieces / costume, I'd put it more in line with Flash Gordon.
I've not read the book, so whether this is an accurate representation to the source material is unknown to me. I still really enjoy it for what it is on its own. If you're looking for an epic mini-series, you could do worse... say, Langoliers kind of worse.
Turbo Kid (2015)
Great 80's Film
I'm going to give it an 8 for having a bit too much humor and/or over the top 80's cheese but that's also its attraction.
If you're a kid who grew up in the 80's, you'll love how it hearkens back to those days. It encapsulates a time period in which we were all still terrified of having the bombs fall. In the case of this film, the apocalypse has occurred and all that remains are relics of the 80's.
I'm not sure a younger audience would appreciate it as much but it wouldn't be a bad primer into films of that day. It's got the bicycle chase scenes, comic book love, a young man living a fantasy, kicking rad 80's soundtrack and Michael F'in Ironside. I'm almost positive he had the best agent of the era and that Hollywood was forced to sign him to every film.
But a handful of the references will certainly be lost on the younger crowd. I still think anyone can sit and enjoy it though because it's good on its own without all of that intrinsic knowledge.
The plot is a little shaky at points but eh... I really feel like I'm in between NeverEnding Story, The Wizard and Rad. That's not so bad.
But for the love of all that is holy, stop using CGI blood splatters. Some of it was corn syrup, but in the parts it wasn't, it was very apparent.
All in all it's a pretty crazy film and you just have to kind of go with it. I'm not sure I'd make this my number #1 indie film of the year but it's high on the list.
Infini (2015)
The Spoils of Meh.
A group of soldiers are sent in to save earth from a ship that is on the other side of the known universe, in fact, it's at the edge of the universe. So far away that they get to utter the words, time slippage. This ship somehow poses an immediate threat to humanity because it's on its way to Earth, from the other side of the universe traveling at... unknown speed. It could arrive at any moment, say, 50,000,000,000,000,000 years from now.
At some point the script may have actually lost me. I'm guessing it was within the first 10 minutes or so. So my analysis may not be 100% accurate. But it is an accurate portrayal of just how confusing the entire thing is.
Stopping the ship is only one part of the mission. The other is to save a lone survivor who escaped from some other tragic event but managed to land in the worst place in the universe while doing so. How is this possible? How did he end up there and how will the elite unit travel to save him? By using a spell that's only allowed by one man from within Hogwart's Castle - they apparate. Sound science.
As they arrive, they are treated to an Event Horizon like atmosphere. No Latin is spoken, but it may have been more discernible than what was being said in English and I went to art school. Never took a lick of Latin but it would have made more sense.
So they find the guy by himself trapped in a room, who's managed the learn the dead languages known as Binary and ASCII. This allows him to control the highly advanced edge of the universe type ship using a keyboard that still has a cord attached to it. The monitors are thankfully not done in full 32bit color and harken back to a more advanced age of monochromatic interfacing. If all hell didn't break lose, there may have been time for a game of pong.
They all go crazy and start killing each other because remember the virus - i mean, most advanced life form ever. The fight sequences play out as if they were directed by a former WWE jobber.
Anyways, the life form just doesn't understand us at all and now everyone is dead but thankfully, before our hero dies at the end he gets to deliver a dialog that's so amazing, it's actually said TWICE. It's so long and profound, they decided it would be a good idea to show him saying it and then do a montage of him saying again as it panned over all the dead bodies.
Then everyone wakes up and goes home. 3 out of 10 because I somehow managed to make it through.
Autómata (2014)
If You Want Less Tween Dystopian...
This is not the movie you're looking for. It's not tween or teen but it is horrible. Let's say for a moment you're a hardcore dystopian fan, you do need to watch this. There's just not a lot of great options for adult heroes in the genre right now.
I found myself nodding off half-way through. So what's wrong with it?
1. Bad script. The dialog was so bad when it tried at times to sound scientific, it just sounded like a bunch of jargon thrown together to form a sentence. TWO LAWS OF ROBOTICS? You better read your Asimov. Don't get cute and try and come up with your own, you aren't even on that level.
I also didn't buy the ENTIRE PLOT. I could find no reason as to why the antagonists were doing what they were doing. It made no sense. They tried but ultimately they failed.
2. Missed opportunities. Rather than follow a possibly interesting storyline (very first scene), one that would have been similar to Blade Runner, they completely miss it by making an enfeebled character (Antonio Banderas) the primary protagonist. Dylan McDermott should have been the focus, unfortunately they turned his character into a simpleton with a one track mind. "I hate robots, derp... derp." Antonio also had a one track mind, "I have to get back to my family, derp... derp."
3. Rehash. There's nothing new here. It borrows heavily from Blade Runner, iRobot, District 9, Goodfellas and Judge Dredd. The Judge Dredd with Stallone, not Urban. I'm partially kidding about the latter two but seriously... the unnamed bad guys seemed like they could have been extras in a mob film. They weren't even on the level of being decent wise guys, just random extras you might have seen during the wedding scene of The Godfather.
4. The camera work. Atrocious. It does its best not to show just how cheap the sets are and never manages to pull off a single good shot. I'd have loved to have explored more of the city, instead we have Banderas in a desert for much of the film. You want him to die of dehydration but he never does. You only had 15 million dollars to spend on the budget, couldn't you have skipped the bottled water for the cast?
5. Emotion. The most emotion you get from anyone in the film is from the robots themselves and they had the emotional range of a teaspoon but I'll take it.
So here I am, stuck with watching dystopian films where the lead actors are half my age. I actually enjoy the Hunger Games but it would be nice to get a Brazil or Equilibrium every now and then, this just isn't it.
Revolution OS (2001)
A Film That Doesn't Reflect Inward
*Note, there may be spoilers but it's documented history. It's like spoiling The Civil War by Ken Burns.
Fast forward thirteen years to 2014, it's easy to reflect back on this film and see it was a product of its time. This documentary is an interesting look into the world of the Open Source movement and the people behind it but nothing more.
Revolution OS spends most of its time speaking on the open source community and chiding proprietary software giant, Microsoft. A popular narrative in 2004. It's very much an idealist view on the computing world built on Richard Stallman's rhetoric. A brilliant man who was unable to adapt to changing times, a relic of the hippie generation.
Apple had yet to make a comeback with its Switch campaign, the iMac and iPod - during this time it was primarily Linux vs. Microsoft for people such as myself. I couldn't build software from scratch but I was able to fix problems. For me? There was no doubt Microsoft was the winner in this area and as much as I enjoy this movie, it fails in addressing the open source community problems.
Have they produced some great software? Apache is mentioned and it's great for running a server, even on Windows. But what they fail to speak of is the hardware manufacturer's lack of support for Linux in the early 2000's. I can't build software, I certainly can't build hardware. So you'd find 20 page hacks just to get your sound to work. Now if you're in the business of wanting to provide software support for people, which is a big part of this community, that's great. Someone will pay you to fix the problem and you're the geek to do it but why not just make it work to begin with? Paid support is an unfeasible business model for the average user - it's flipping expensive.
They make a big point of paid support in the open source community which it has but so does Windows. There's thousands of companies in direct contact with Microsoft to help alleviate any problems your company may encounter.
Tinkering with the various operating systems was and is fun but at some point you either continue that progress of "hacking" the software or you get tired and want it to work. With the exception of Windows ME, Microsoft had a fairly good track record of a stable operating system filled with support from hardware manufacturers. With proprietary software, you DO have choices. If Voodoo begins to fail at its job in providing a decent video card, you switch to Nvidia and then ATI... there's also a plethora of software choices from free, open source to paid. Support can be free, sometimes it's not. We are really in a different era by now.
The film also delves a bit into the Mozilla project and the problem it had with Internet Explorer. Today? After years of development and hundreds and thousands of changes the browser of choice for geeks, FireFox, began to lose out to Google Chrome. Why? It was faster. FireFox had become set in a quagmire of relying on plug-ins and they forgot to shore up the primary software itself. It had a huge ram issue when Chrome was released. A sleek and faster browser.
In today's world, you have APIs and SDKs that allow you certain licensing rights that allow you to tap into the system you're building software for. The Linux vs. Microsoft is almost a dead narrative by now. The majority of people have moved on from the desktop to the tablets and mobile phones. They really don't care about proprietary vs. open source - the average user does not care. Period. They want it to be easy and work. It's hard to imagine the desktop dying off for web developers like myself - what could possibly take its place in the heavy computing and production world?
It's not a tablet or cell phone but it's something and it'll probably spawn its own documentary when it arrives.
Nature Unleashed: Tornado (2005)
So bad... it's not even good.
Honestly, what is the point of this movie. The title fails to deliver. Tornadoes? Yes, we would like to see some... but the movie really fails to provide us with any.
I've seen this before, but this is my second time of passively watching it. I didn't turn it on thinking it would be the best movie ever, but I didn't expect to be trudged through a movie about mystic religion and gypsies. Weird neck crystals and the sort... what? What does that have to do with anything, NOTHING!
You know, this movie could have been great had they kept up with the original story line where the dad is dumb enough to tie himself to a tractor and video record a tornado. Keep it in the same country, have the son grow up to be a sheriff, only to find out that tornadoes have formed a click and are coming after him and his entire town. The only thing that can save them? Love.
Doesn't that sound exciting? No? Well, neither is this movie.
When is Sci-Fi going to pay me to make this crap? Heck, who paid these people to make this!