Too many movies

Starship Troopers

Absolutely the best movie ever made. While not entirely tied to the book, it touches on some of the social and political aspects that are important. "The social sciences had brought mankind to its knees. It was the veterans who stepped up and imposed the stability we still enjoy today. "  The book goes on to explain that only veterans had proven that they could put the good of the group above their own personal benefit. 

The "mobile infantry" is the 3rd best movie depiction of the Marine Corps (after Heartbreak Ridge and Aliens) I've seen.

This has been my number 1 favorite movie for at least the last 10 years. I have the other 3 movies and the TV series as well, though those are just about fighting bugs, but leave the politics out of it. 



The Avengers

Pretty sure I am the last person on the planet to see this movie. Sometimes when something is so overhyped, I just can't bring myself to buy in. 

So from the unhyped perspective, it was a good picture. I still think they give "iron man" way too much capability, but I guess that stems from the comic - and which actor they have to pay the most. Scarlet Jo rocked.



Escape Plan

OK, so a couple of tough guys in their 60s may not make for an edge of your seat action movie. But Stalone and Schwarzenegger do manage a solid pic.  Going a bit more cerebral and a bit less "blowing shit up" worked well enough. The third act was lacking due to some plot flaws, but good entertainment overall. 



Runner Runner

This movie feels a lot like "The Facebook", with girly-man Justin Timberlake as "the smart guy" who gets embroiled in the back office side of on line gambling. Ben Afleck fails to be a convincing boss man/villain/mastermind type, but the picture flows well enough in spite of that.



Vikingdom

Once you get past the impressively low production values, mish mash of miscellaneous accents, and complete disregard for actual Norse religion, Vikingdom actually draws you in. I'm not saying that you'll "care" about the characters, but you will want to know what happens next. 



Parker

Statham driven "Pay Back meets Reservoir Dogs", but not quite that good pic. A disappointingly thinned down J-Lo has a supporting role that holds up well enough.  



Rampage


Dark Shadows

Tim Burton, Johnny Depp, Danny Elfman joint poking fun at the idea "what if a vampire was buried for 200 years and came back in the modern world?".  Good fun, GREAT supporting cast. 


Dark Skies

American Mary

Sleepwalk with Me



Bangkok Adrenaline

This feature is centered on poor acting and awesome muy thai fight scenes. Like an ode to Jackie Chan, cast members use misc props to fight in around and on Thailand's mean streets.

The plot is ridiculous. The actors are obviously fighters first and actors second. The writing, well, there probably wasn't any...  ...but you'll still watch to the end to see some great well planned fights. 



Skinhead Attitude

Documentary from 2003 trying to show the dichotomy of racist skin heads verse the original two-tone skins.  Some good history for those into the genre, but it's a "scratch the surface" attempt. 



Nikita   Seasons 2 and 3

"We have a black box, and we're going to try to right all of the wrongs Division has done."  That premise holds up for maybe half of season 2, then it goes on a bender and gets totally lost. 

The season ends abruptly, and season 3 launches assuming a bunch of stuff has happened that we learn about from blurbs in conversation.  "I dropped Percy down a 12 story shaft" is all we hear about his demise, and Melinda Clarke becomes enemy number one. More Melinda is always a good thing. 

There is an episode in season 3 that delves into Amanda's beginnings. Very well done, and brilliantly twisted. 


The Pacific 

Binge Watch:  Entourage seasons 4 through 8.

Misc episodes of Archer

More TV than Movies

Rogue  season 1

Staring Thandie Newton, this Movie Channel original held its own. It took most of the first episode to wrap my head around the sultry Dame Vaco as a "gritty undercover cop", really wanted to see her smoldering eye liner...  ...that said, characters are set up quickly, and the story draws you in to care about what will happen next. 

One or two strong supporting roles, at least as many really flimsy ones too. Kavan Smith plays the non dimensional pointless husband of Newton's Grace Travis. Wow, not only is he as convincing as a bag of crap, he manages to draw out the worst acting/over acting from everyone around him. 

Conversely, anyone playing a character with the last name Laszlo does a pretty convincing job of it. Not afraid to whack an important player just to twist the plot, Rogue is worth a look. The fix is in place for season 2, should be great. 

Rome  season 2

Free to take even more liberties now the play "Caesar" is over, season two carries us toward a series wrap up that doesn't disappoint. Characters from season one are slightly more flawed, believable, and endearing. 

SoA  season 6

Man, please.  Can we possibly cram more montage scenes into so few shows?  Did you just get tired of writing the monotonous dialog and decide to go without?  Go make a friggin rock opra - like Cop Rock maybe. 

If anyone knows where I can find a by-episode or by-character body count for SOA, I'd love to see it. I'm sorry, I know there are people who live outside the law - but leaving a trail of corpses this wide is going to get on someone's radar. 

The best thing about season 6?  They finally killed off the most (one of the most) annoying cast members. Halalooya.

Dead Set

You'll be surprised to learn that I have a ridiculously extensive collection of zombie movies and TV shows. Zombie movies were the only thing that ever gave me bad dreams as a kid - well, the only form of entertainment to do so anyway. So there is a tendency to gut one out now and then just to see if I can handle it. 

They say that zombie movies reflect the "political mood of the nation", I think the allure is much simpler. In many movies you see extraordinary people in extraordinary situations (action heros, super cops, the unselfish unrequited love, etc...). In zombie flicks you see basically ordinary people (with defined roles and no back story needed) in horrific situations. It's easy to think "I would do this", and "I'd find one of those", and put yourself into the picture. There are always characters who do stupid stuff (and get eaten) so you can think "that was stupid, I wouldn't have done that".

So the premise of Dead Set is that a typical inexplicable zombie outbreak engulfs the UK - while the cast of the Big Brother reality show goes on unknowingly. So they make the basis of the survivors cadre. 

This is 5 shows about 23 min each, and plays like a made for TV movie. No huge surprises, though it ends predictably it also ends very abruptly. 

Enemies Closer

After "6 Bullets" I thought "I must have judged JCVD unfairly, maybe his movies are worth while". 10 minutes into "Enemies Closer" and I was sure my original hypothesis was correct. This guy is the ultimate magnet for craptastic writing and mediocre acting. 

BINGE WATCH!!   Seasons 1, 2, and 3 of Entourage

Too much time at the lake house. 

Dinner Time

Pork loin, deer loin, peas with bacon fat, and diced potatoes, carrots, and celery with butter and season salt in the foil pouch.

We hiked a couple miles around the property today and need the calories!

A few turkeys in the snow

have had as many as 18 at once, but can't find that video at the moment...

They are hilarious to watch.

Water Works

Back at the cabin, and the water works. Reassembled the filter, pumped about 100 gallons over to the main tank, and it looks like we're good to go.

Genny fired too. Looks like it was just cold enough long enough to freeze the propane line feeding the genny.  Still runs like crap, but at least we have it if we need it.

Things will be in motion tomorrow, and should be getting the new roof on during the following two or three days.

Getting back

Ran up to the cabin Thursday for a 24 hour hunting expedition. Didn't want to deal with water and power, broken this and fixing that.

It was sunny and chilly when I arrived, temp on the left is the INSIDE temp. Fired up the pellet stove and propane heater, bundled up and headed to the blind. Sat out there for 4+ hours waiting on turkey. No go.

Went inside to warm up and eat some hot food. Back out around 6:30 in hopes of getting a deer. Had about a half moon on snow covered ground. Should be good enough to see.

It was a long wait. I have a great looking buck, maybe 8 points, coming in around 4 am. But I know realistically that I probably won't be able to get up to get after him. So set my sights on the two bigger does coming in a little after 10 pm.

You hear a lot of stuff in the blind, and everything seems amplified. You'll swear there is "big game" coming through the brush. Grunting, snorting, crashing along...  ...usually turns out to be a squirrel. More than once I've thought "oh my god, what the heck is that?" after hearing some god awful noise in the distance. After a couple more times I realize it's just my stomach.

But I checked the time around 9:15 and guessed it was getting to about 10. When I heard a little bleat there was no question.  "Oh, my does are here."  Quick glance out the blind while reaching for the shotgun, they were just walking in.

Now the blind is a bit awkward. The hole they provide to shoot out of is too high to use from a sitting position, and far too low to fire while standing. It's in the middle of the wall (left to right), so you have to move to one side to shoot in the opposite direction.

Add to that, I'm using my beloved Baikal 12 gauge - which I bought as a goose gun. That long barrel needs to be a foot out the window.

I swing around and get a clean bead on the bigger doe, slap the trigger from my hunched over bent leg position. I see her twist and lay on her side as I stumble backward and try not to fall on my ass.

She lifted her head once, and she was done.

I LIKE deer hunting with buckshot. No chasing down animals that can make 50+ yards after a heart shot from a rifle or a crossbow. Literally knock them down. With a good shot, they're not getting back up.

Was up til 2 am dressing her out.  She was somewhere over 150 pounds on the ground, I couldn't counterweight her with my own weight - maybe 170 bundled up. Used the tow strap and the truck to get her in the air.

Sherri is definitely a better butcher than I. I'm too worried about trimming every hint of silver skin and saving every morsel of meat. She gets in there and gets it done.

TV and Movies

Pawn   
     I tried to find more information on the background of this movie. The description said it was about the robbery of a pawn shop gone bad. But it had nothing to do with a pawn shop - it was about robbing a safe in the back of a diner.
     Michael Chiklis with a Manchester accent what's odd, but he pulled it off.   Strange movie, probably worth watching. 

Into the Blue   
     Ok, for guys reading this, I only need to say four words:  JESSICA ALBA UNDER WATER.  Every bit as glorious as you had hoped.     
      For everyone else, it's an interesting story line, sometimes falling into the Hollywood pitfalls you expect. But there are a few good twists, and Jessica Alba under water. 

Idiocracy
     Haven't watched this for years. I love the premise that stupid people breed too much, smart people not enough,  and we end up with a future where we can't solve the basic problems in life. Not too much of a stretch really.    It plays out well enough, the story struggles here or there,  but it gets the job done. 

Star Trek  The Beginning
     As much as I like Star Trek everything,  I always feel a bit cheated when movies (and the Enterprise series) play around with the time line. It makes me feel like I have to go back and watch everything else all over again to see how much it changed.    Just like sex and violence, I like to keep my Star Trek and time travel separate. 

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     Along with original content coming out of the pay cable channels, many of the online streaming companies are putting out some interesting products. Netflix has "Orange is the New Black", Crackle has "Cleaners" and "The Unusuals", Hulu has "The Booth at the End" and others.  These are just samples, each has more than I can list here.
      Most of these have smaller budgets than their network brethren, far smaller budgets than the HBO and Cinemax behemoths - and it shows.   Some feel a bit like "place holders" to fill gaps in the actor's resumes - but that's ok too, because you get to see some medium-large names working on pet projects.     Look out for these "original content" productions. Might find a gem in the mix. A lot of these (like Crackle) are completely free. 

Gravity season 1   
       This is a Starz Channel production centered on Krysten Ritter. Other names listed for the show are "failure to fly" and "suicide for dummies,which are both more appropriate. Light fare that plods along ok, with a season opener and a season ending better than the season itself (just 10 episodes total).    
      Ritter, while good a what she does, seems terminally type cast as "the cute goth" practically reprising her role from Breaking Bad.  Remove heroine, add suicide, same girl. I think she could do more. 

Entourage season 8   
     The series ends eith a weepy eyed everything happy flare. You'll be "happy for them" as the cast heads off to the next part of their lives. 

Nikita season 1   
     Seems everything cool I remember from 3 seasons of Nikita happened in season 1.  I wanted to run through the series again before starting in on season 4, but now am wondering if it's worth the bother. 

Firefly   
     I watch this series once or twice a year, capped off with Serenity the movie.