"The unexpected becomes expected."
Movies, TV-Shows, Music CDs and Art
"Goodbye, Arrested Development". Now that the show has been cancelled and nails are being driven in the coffin, I just rant against FOX and rave on the show for a few minutes to get it all out...*sniff*.
My discussion on illegal downloads, mostly the way that I ended up spending a lot of money after using illegal downloads to sample stuff.
I decided to move horror movies to a separate category for two reasons. First off, I tend to watch a whole lot more horror movies than any other kind. Secondly, they tend to be bad. In fact, half of the good horror movies I can think of are bad movies in their own right, its the whole package that makes them work, if at all.
I occasionally write down basic idea on the horror genre. Two such of these rambles are the Four Horror Movie Target Audiences and the Four Horror Endings.
For all those TV shows that bring us a series of mini-stories and a weekly dose of horror and/or weirdness.
The IT Crowd. Black Books. Spaced. Arrested Development. Father Ted. Red Dwarf. Flight of the Conchords. Are You Being Served? Keeping Up Appearances. Jeeves and Wooster. A Bit of Fry and Laurie. Scrubs. FLCL. Tales from the Crypt. Coupling. Frasier. The Office (UK). Ranma. Mythbusters. Gankutsuou. Firefly. Escaflowne. The Daily Show. Meet the Robinsons. Shingu. Neon Genesis Evangelion. The Mighty Boosh. Darkplace. Full Metal Alchemist. Zombie Loan.
Shaun of the Dead. Night of the Living Dead. 28 Days Later. Nightmare Before Christmas. Blade Runner. Children of Men. Fight Club. Snatch. Lord of the Rings. Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle. Boondock Saints. Uzumaki. Battle Royale. Shawshank Redemption. Shutter. Slither. Dawn of the Dead. Return of the Living Dead. Flight of the Dead. Eight Legged Freaks. Candyman. Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Dune. Star Wars. Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. Undead. Ninth Gate. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Garden State. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. the Ring. Dark Water. Evil Dead. Creep Show. Minority Report. Total Recall. A Scanner Darkly. One Missed Call. The Host. Stardust. Sweeney Todd. No Country for Old Men.
Akeboshi. Ambulance. Emilie Autumn. Apoptose. As I Lay Dying. Frank Black. Ludwig van Beethoven. Johnny Cash. Nick Cave. John Coltrane. Darkest of the Hillside Thickets. Miles Davis. Dead Can Dance. Death Cab for Cutie. Depeche Mode. Die Warzau. Dimmu Borgir. Bob Dylan. Danny Elfman. Explosions in the Sky. Freezepop. GOLDEN AGE. Haggard. Colin Hay. Robert Johnson. KMFDM. Lamb of God. Lacuna Coil. Leaves Eyes. Modest Mouse. Nine Inch Nails. Gary Numan. The Orb. Orbital. Penumbra. The Pillows. Pixies. Postal Service. Shiina Ringo. The Shins. Sirenia. Skinny Puppy. Slayer. Rasputina. Rush. Franz Schubert. Kenji Siratori. They Might Be Giants. Tom Waits. Within Temptation. Wormfood. Yes.
| Title | Type | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Cry_Wolf | Movie (horror?) | While I am sure this movie is quite effective to teenagers, and the two main-ish characters are ok, it is the kind of crap that hollywood has tried passing off as a horror/thriller for over a decade. With moderately predictable plot "twists", characters seeping with illogical behavior, and a single well shot scene, you will do better to support a better PORN movie. |
| Gingerdead Man | Movie (horror) | Its just bad in that way that keeps it from even being fun to watch. |
| War at Home | TV Sitcom | While the show is not that bad, it is not that good either. Its humor is sort of a live action rehash of Family Guy with about half the charm, yet FOX gave it a "gimme" timeslot on Sunday night and is bringing it back for another season while axing Arrested Development. I am not watching it out of principal (thank goodness for Comcast's on Demand which can track what I watch, and how I turn the tv off when this show comes on). |
I am trying to find out the name of a group (or solo artist). All I know is the following information:
Yeah, it's pretty much hopeless. But if that rings a bell (the last one being the big thing) then e-mail me at wyrmis@hotmail.com.
Godwin's Law is half internet joke, half good sense, that states than an argument is over once a comparison to Hitler or the Nazi party is made. It was intended to keep internet discussions somewhat under control. Once an argument degrades to one person calling another person a Nazi, or making a comparative argument to a Nazi, then both sides lose and the argument is forfeit.
I say let's strap a corallary to it: the Matrix Corollary (Bolden's Law also works, if you prefer). Anytime, in a debate about movies or any other such discussion, the word "Matrix" comes up, the argument/review/debate is over. Done for.
I say this for two main reasons. The first reason is because the major cores of the Matrix franchise are a combination of the Cyberpunk RPG, Dune, Philip K Dick books and a dash of Hong Kong Theater (and, of course, anime). The ideas of religion, of fate, and identity are mainstays to the speculative fiction realm that had anthologies back in the 60's and earlier, so I know the Matrix didn't create them. The clothing and attitudes are nice, but are more or less just the illustrations from Cyberpunk or Shadowrun books. Even the "stop and swivel" effects are a creation of anime, and I have heard, before, that bullet time was a big deal by a couple of Hong Kong directors.1
The other thing that drives me batty is the fact that Matrix created a type of visuals that were effective. Yet, if another movie uses these tools, they get plastered with "rip off". Have you ever called a cartoon a Steamboat Willy rip off because it has multiple layers of backgrounds (as almost all good cartoons do now)? Do you call any movie that uses extensive use of blue screen to put actors in a fantasy world a Phantom Menace rip off? Generally not. Even if we recognize the development of techniques stemming from the original movies (and I am assuming these were moderately original movies in these regards), we do not attack the whole movie. We have the intelligence to recognize that a good tool is going to get repeated, right?
That is why I take no one serious if they describe a movie as a Matrix-clone unless the movie is an obvious clone. Just because it has a Messiah figure, or has philosophy, or has multi-speed action shots; does not make it a Matrix clone.
That is all.
1: One thing I notice is the "its a rip off" crowd fail to notice such obvious influences on the Matrix concepts: Jonny Neumonic, Strange Days, The Crow and Dark City. Furthermore, saying that The Matrix rips off Robot Holocaust (a b-movie with a main character named Neo who is trying to save his fellow humans from their robot masters who use humans to provide them energy, I kid you not, its been out years before the Matrix) will get you shot, and possibly banned from message boards.
Though it might not be up to your normal, distinguished tastes, I would like to point out that you can find b-movie heaven at Public Domain Torrents. The majority of them will only appeal to those people wanting a MST3k night, but there are a few good ones, as well.
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"The hidden is greater than the seen."