Sunday, July 30, 2006
Kerri-Anne: Hey I like your shirt!
Aidan: Thanks, I bought it cause it looks like an old couch.

Pretty uneventful weekend, but a few items of note:

1. Apparently it's Bruce Campbell week at Future Shop or something. On Friday me and Shaun hit the FS to find something to do that night, and we found not one but TWO hilarious-looking Bruce Campbell TV series, one called Jack of All Trades, where he's an American agent who has a horse named Nutcracker because he likes to jump onto the horse from high altitudes. The other I forget the name of, but it was more expensive so I only bought Jack of all trades to try out.

2. Finally watched Batman Begins. I thought it was fine, but still think Dale's review is one of the funniest things I've ever read.

3. Went to a pig roast! An actual pig roast! Truth be told we were slightly disappointed when the roast pig tasted pretty much like pork roast. Which, in retrospect, makes perfect sense. I don't really know what we were expecting.

4. Yesterday Shaun and I watched what I honestly think might be the worst movie ever, A Sound of Thunder. It's set in the future, where a time travel company lets rich clients travel back in time to hunt dinosaurs for thrills. Of course, they're not supposed to change anything, because of ramifications of changing the future. Naturally, something gets changed, future gets fucked up, chaos ensues. A decent enough premise. But they totally blow the actual execution. First of all, the CG is just HORRIBLE. Five minutes in, we see a yellow car go by, a grey car go by, a blue car go by...and then those same three cars, over and over again. Not to mention about 75% of the movie was very obviously shot against a green screen. It was terrible. Another bad thing was the changes. Remember in the Simpsons where Homer messes up the past? And there's like, Flanders as world leader, giant muffins as homes, insect people, etc. - all sorts of crazy shit? Well in this movie, there's ape-dinosaurs (which looked really weird), lots of plant overgrowth, some hallucinogenic thorn plants, and giant bats. And that's pretty much it, DESPITE the back of the box bragging about "lizard-men." Just horrible. After finishing it (which I had to convince Shaun to do, after he shut it off in disgust after the main guy killed a giant sea serpent underwater with a knife), we tried to think of something good about the movie, and honestly couldn't think of a single thing. Rating: 0/10.


[posted by Rades at 10:17 PM] LINK ||
Friday, July 28, 2006
Shaun's Shit Touch

Oh, we were serious about that quote in the previous post. Shaun apparently has an anti-midas SHIT touch, because this weekend when he came to visit, everything around us self-destructed, broke down, or disappeared into thin air. So we decided it was either because of his shit touch or because my house has tiny little gremlins that hate him. My computer kept freezing when we tried to play games, a CD Shaun bought just completely disappeared, and both of us tearing my place apart for hours didn't find it, my car was having problems starting, etc.

We checked out Lady in the Water, to mixed reviews. Shaun enjoyed it, while I thought it was horribly written, self-indulgent and completely lacking in plot development. Being an M.Night Shimyalaylalaan movie, I'd have to say it was not quite as bad as Signs, but nowhere near as good as The Village. It had some amusing moments, but it suffered from massive Deus Ex Machina syndrome, where the plot just stagnates until Shiyamalayan decides it's time to progress.

It's similar to Serenity, when the crew is at a loss of what to do - they have a bunch of clues and random bits of info but no idea how to put it all together. So they say "Let's go see Mr. Universe," a completely new character who, apparently, has all kinds of wordly information and answers to all their questions. In other words, an omniscient "God" role. I hate when stuff like this happens in movies, because the characters are essentially asking God (the director) what to do, or what something means. It's just a lazy way for the writer/director to provide essential plot information without coming up with an actual way for the characters to get the information on their own. What I also dislike about it is why wouldn't the characters just be using these marvelous sources of information the entire time? It'd be like going into a huge library and insisting on searching each book manually for the information you need, instead of just asking the librarian.

end rant.

We hit Kelowna for the day on Saturday, blew around the mall and just checking out some different places. Shaun had a huge craving for beer on the way home so we stopped at a liquor store on the way home. About 30 seconds after we left, Shaun went from slightly disappointed that the beer inside wasn't refrigerated, to dejected, to outright disgusted. We also toyed with the idea of pulling over the car on the highway and just running over to the lake and jumping in. (It was freaking hot out.)

Two new words were added to our vocabulary. The first is from Corpse Bride, a loud and redneck-ish HAAAEEEEEEEY!!! And the second is from The Ref, when Denis Leary's partner calls him and instead of Leary a cop answers, so the partner just says "Euhhhhh!" and hangs up. Both passed the field test (frequently saw use over the weekend) and have been added to such perennial faves as BAAAAAAMFIELD, UH-HUH, and OH YEAH!!

In other news, Nick moved into his new place, finally. As a result, me and Shaun devised many evil, fiendish tricks housewarming surprises we could spring on Nick. And yes, this would seem counter-productive to write about it and give away our plans, but come on, it's not like he's NOT expecting something crazy from us anyways.


[posted by Rades at 9:47 AM] LINK ||
Sunday, July 23, 2006
Shaun: I've got the anti-midas touch...everything I touch turns to shit.


[posted by Rades at 6:50 PM] LINK ||
Saturday, July 22, 2006
Mike: So what's on tv?
Shaun: Jimmy Kimmel...Apollo 13...and some marmots twitchin' out.


[posted by Rades at 12:27 AM] LINK ||
Tuesday, July 11, 2006


For the second time this year I went to a movie on opening night, but unlike the ho-hum X3, Pirates of the Caribbean 2: Dead Man's Chest was awesome. Which isn't that big a surprise, but it did have quite a rep to live up to. I think it did okay though, wouldn't you say?

My man Johnny Depp was fantastic as he always is, especially in the odd, eccentric roles he plays so well. The storyline was great, with a lot of mark-out moment twists or turns. Nothing too complicated - it is, after all, a kid's movie - but thoroughly entertaining. Not quite as many snappy lines or fantastic moments as the first one though. Better action sequences though, including the great scene with the water wheel:



The villains in this one was just as good as the undead pirates, and even though we never really find out anything about the nameless henchmen, they had a lot of personality and distinction from their looks and behaviour alone - something that the undead baddies in the first one lacked.

There were very little boring moments, very few confusing moments, and very few overly cheesy moments (between Legolas and Knightley) which was much appreciated. Speaking of Knightley, I thought she was much better in this one because she wasn't as predictable as she was in the first movie. She was funny and creatively used, and didn't go all Buffy like heroines in some other movies.

The only thing I didn't get was that dice game. That was messed up. Did ANYONE understand that game? Geez.

I won't say anything spoiler-y about the ending, but fuck it was a great idea. Can't wait till the 3rd one.

10/10 +1 for Depp being awesome

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Also worthy of mention were the trailers. First up was Invincible, a feel-good, based-on-a-real-story football story starring Marky Mark. It looked okay but bleh for the title, although it did earn a "I am invincible!" comment from Jeremy. Next was The Guardian? Some really stupid looking deep-sea diver movie. Horrible. Next was A Night at the Museum with Ben Stiller, Owen Wilson and Robin Williams actually looked really good. Then there was that Nascar-ish racing one with Will Ferrell, which looked amusing but also pretty much like every other Will Ferrell movie.

The last one started out boring looking and I wasn't too thrilled. But then as soon as it continued I realized what it was because I had already seen it HOURS after it was released online. It was the trailer for the Transformers movie coming out NEXT JULY. Such a long time, it's going to be torture. The trailer was actually really bad, but once again Jeremy came through strong, with a "Not today, Galvatron!" quip. But a year? Man. That's way too long.


[posted by Rades at 2:10 AM] LINK ||