For Sunday: Monsters Trailer

This looks pretty awesome.

Movie Watch: The Fourth Kind

Interestingly, when I went to go see Paranormal Activity in San Francisco, a huge line was waiting not for that film - but The Fourth Kind, which I had never even heard of - which seemed odd since I had only really learned of Paranormal Activity through twitter a few weeks earlier.

The Fourth Kind is a movie much in the same vein as Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity, a documentary format to reveal the bizarre events unfolding for the main characters - this time dealing with the remote location of Nome, Alaska.

For those that haven't seen the movie, I'm going to say - if you've enjoyed other movies in the same vein, you'll probably enjoy this one. If you were the kind who though BWP was awful, while The Fourth Kind does some new things to the subgenre - they probably aren't going to sell you on them.

In fact, if the reviews are any indication, they will just annoy you more.

So, that said - it will be hard to write the rest of this post without talking about some of the details of the film. While I'll try to remain spoiler free in general, there are few basic things that might effect the viewing. Granted, many reviews also talked about the same thing - but consider this paragraph your warning. In a similar way that I said Paranormal Activity is best viewed knowing little about the film, the same goes for here. I won't put in any major plot points, so if you're tempted then fine ... but you were warned.

OK. So here's the thing, and what I can't quite grasp.

The Fourth Kind is about alien abduction. It's represented in parts of re-enactments of documentary style pieces of film, and also showing parts of documentary style footage. Sometimes next to each other. One common aspect is the director interviewing the person who shot the footage, who is played in the re-enactments by Milla Jovovich.

Here's the shocker: this stuff isn't real. And quite a few reviews really took that to task:

"The problem is that it also decides to lie to your face by pretending to be honest." (CinemaBlend)

"Purporting to be a true story of alien abduction, in reality it's a clumsy attempt to update the hoax technique Orson Welles perfected seven decades ago." (Scotsman)

"The first line in The Fourth Kind has Milla Jovovich calling herself an “actress,” so we know right away the film is lying." (MountainX)

"It was with crushing disappointment that my research discovered this is all made up out of whole cloth, including the real Abigail." (Roger Ebert)

And many reviews spend a decent amount of time poking holes in the "facts" representing by the "documentary" and clearly toss their hands up in the air in grief and frustration in the process.

To which I repeat. This is about alien abductions in Alaska. While some of the "footage" could be seen as realistic, there are also bits where people levitate(spoiler but hey, it's on the cover) and speak in alien tongue. If this stuff was real, they wouldn't need Milla Jovovich to sell it.

It's true that Fourth Kind goes more heavy handed than other films in the subgenre of mockuhorrormentary (TM pending) in trying to convince you that this is real, from the bumper speeches from Milla before and after the main movie, to the footage being displayed next to re-enactments, to overreaching claims about disappearances in Nome, Alaksa, to blanking out names to protect the fictionally innocent - The Fourth Kind uses different tactics from either BWP or Paranormal Activity. Those films try to fly under your radar and keep you guessing. Fourth Kind tries to trade reminding you that this is "real" to also include recognizable actors, glitzy sets and clearly edited scenes.

On one hand, this meets with very mixed success. Don't get me wrong, The Fourth Kind isn't a great film. More like occasionally good - even by mockuhorrormentary standards. But it is an interesting film. Like The Last Broadcast is an excellent counter-example to Blair Witch Project, The Fourth Kind is a counter-example to some of the basic tenets of the genre. Don't use known actors. Don't use sets. Only use handy cams and stock footage, documentary style.

So for so many reviews to focus so squarely that the film is entirely fake when, in the words of The Girl - "it's clearly fake" ... but to skip over that the film is at least trying to change up what could rapidly become a tired formula, feels like an over-reaction to be played into a hoax.

In fact - if anything the film should be commended because Ebert felt he needed to research it when he was done watching it. To convince someone who watches as many films as Ebert does that this footage might actually be real is a pretty good parlor trick.

So again, not a great film. Barely a good film. I kinda recommend it, but only kinda. My main problem with the film is that the good bits are spread out thinly and paced unevenly and some of the "real world" plot points don't line up evenly with the supernatural elements. It's disjointed. But still somewhat fun.

But yes. It's fake.

And so are most movies.

Bad Movie Showdown - Transformers 2 Vs. GI Joe

As stated elsewhere, when I travel I often dig up movies which I know The Girl won't object to me watching without her. This often requires lowering the quality bar to nearly subterranean heights. This last week saw Transformers 2 pitted against GI Joe.

Both flicks are derived from Hasbro toy lines, both were once long running cartoons which resulted in movie length features. They have established plots, backstories, and characters - all, of course, being pretty hokey and shallow ... but naturally the whole thing could use a touch up for modern audiences.

And to be fair, one of these is a sequel.

GI Joe
I had a huge Joe collection as a kid. It was about the only thing that rivaled Star Wars in terms of pure action figure goodness. These were toys with serious backstories, an arsenal of weapons - and thumbs that mysteriously broke off quite a bit.

The movie can be somewhat excused for tossing out the majority of the ensemble, I suppose - especially if you take the stance that people might not have a voluminous set of toys to instantly know the characters. Even the characters that are spotlighted, though, undergo rather drastic changes to serve the plot. It's nothing earth shattering considering we're talking source material based on a toy line, not Tolkien - but still somewhat sad that even basic outlines can't be followed.

Then there are the toys. Somehow the movie takes a franchise which already had some pretty hokey concepts and just makes them big screen hokey - the well noted "accelerator suits" (AKA - CGI Battle Warriors) as a perfect example.

And poor Dennis Quaid -I don't think he's been this out of place since Dragonheart. He seems to have problems with characters who are supposed to have growly accents.

So it's bad - not over the top bad (usually) - but pretty bad. It has some fun moments, the plot isn't so absurd that you'll hate all of it - and mostly is criminal for butchering an otherwise simple concept. It's bad, and there is better movies to watch well before getting to this one.

But it's just not nearly as bad as...

Transformers 2
Wow. Just wow.

I had no idea how bad this movie was going to be. It's not like the first one was fine cinema, but kinda like Joe it was at least somewhat fun while slashing apart the original material. There is nothing redeeming about this movie. Every scene that is supposed to be funny - isn't. Much of the human interaction in the movie comes off like bad improv.

Even the big bang special effects somewhat fizzle. For one thing, every Decepticon manages to look like nearly every other Decepticon - except for the extreme cases and Soundwave ... who is now a satellite.

Yeah. A satellite. Capable apparently of shooting plot holes to earth with alarming frequency. Trying not to spoil too much here - but a quick list ... a Decepticon Pretender shows up, though unless you are wildly familiar with the comic line ... this feels like just a bizarre violation of the "big transforming robot" concept in general, humans get swallowed whole and then transported safely half way across the world (apparently that Decepticon also transforms into a motel of sorts) and the main villain spends so much time off screen doing nothing relatively nothing except confusing you if you should be paying attention to Megatron or him ... you'll wonder why the whole thing wasn't called "Transformers 2: Revenge of the WTF were we thinking".

It's just a mess, and honestly big screen special effects aren't that hard to find these days. Sadly this movie made a ton of money, so we're likely to be burdened with "Transformers 3: Rise Of Our Massive Lack Of Editing Ability" in the near future.

Fun Fact: The Baroness was voiced by Stargate alum Teryl Rothery for a while. Also, Duke's death in the animated GI Joe movie was averted because of public outcry to Optimus dying in the animated The Transformers film, produced at the same time. Oddly, Wheeljack's death had no such impact.

Stargate Universe, We Really Need To Talk

So I thought "Darkness" was a slow but at least moderately interesting thanks largely to watching a couple of characters breakdown, especially Rush. The Eli Factor was less annoying, because at least Eli was as surprised as I was that everyone expects him to know everything or solve anything.

But "Light"? Painful. Just painful.

Spoilers abound, this is critique and not review ... so if you haven't watched it, well, you're warned.

A few of the finer points:

Don't expect a sensible viewer to really buy into "everyone is going to die" scenarios five episodes into a new show.

Especially when that scenario includes flying to a massive energy source, and everyone was originally going to die because the ship had no energy and your resident smarty smart keeps talking about how the ship came here "for a reason".

Also five episodes in - the whole "stranded on a hideously boring planet" scenario isn't really going to sell easily. The whole "this planet is full of sand" scenario was kinda dull enough.

So instead of plot or conflict, we're bombarded by video confessionals, in the form of one liners spoken into an alien handycam, a sex scene, a lot of moping around, some background music, and some really fairly nice views of the impending sun.

What we lack is any emotional connection to these characters. Eli gets the most airtime, and he's just annoying as hell. Rush is the most developed, but tuned to be unlikable. Our fearless commander is probably the closest thing to a character I might care about and we know he's destined for martyrdom.

Did any of the characters freak out and try to mutiny? Not really, not in any real way. I half expected Eli and Cute Chick to hook up in their supposed last few minutes - which might have made for some interesting dialogue later ... but no such luck. Maybe the shuttle could have gotten stranded? Oh no, we get an incredibly implausible landing instead.

Right now the show is centered around putting everyone into a horribly doomed scenario that everyone survives. Well, OK, Cute Chick's dad bit it - which is sadly the show's best moment to date, even though Cute Chick seems to have rebounded pretty well. The frame of the show is like a disaster movie, which is awesome, except that if you watched a disaster movie and five hours into the movie you only had one real tragedy - you would want your money back.

Finally, the ending of "Light" was just bizarre. Hey, I'm trying to give you a compliment here - but then I'm going to accuse you of being an evil son of a bitch with pretty much nothing to show for it. Felt to me like someone ran the tape and realized there was 40 minutes of essentially a slow ballad music video and decided to toss a bit of infighting for good measure.

Hopefully in the next couple of episodes, it will be less of the Rush and Eli show and we can finally get some real depth into the secondary characters other than lame quips that would barely pass on an actual reality show. Hopefully the conflict will get more complicated than the "big thing we can't solve, oh my we are all dead, oh wait there's the thing we need" style of arc. Because I'm not buying this show has the chops to kill any character off at the moment.

But if the next five episodes follow the same vein as the last five episodes, I'm going to wish the ship had flown into the sun ... and stayed there.

Sci Fi Review: Dollhouse and Stargate: Universe

Science fiction on television seems to go through waves ... you'll have a show which takes off, acts a bit like a tentpole for more sci fi - and then everything winds down and some of the actors from one show start shuffling around. Take the Battlestar reunion taking place on Dollhouse - if Tricia Helfer shows up, I'll be convinced that Echo is actually a Cylon.

Dollhouse peaked somewhat with last season's unaired Epitaph One (unaired, but watched by probably every Dollhouse fan by now), which was easily the best episode of the show so far and serves as guidepost for the direction of the plot. Season two starts not only a little flat, but even somewhat confusing as we jump right in with Ballard now on the side of the 'house and his strategy for bringing it down feeling about as muddled as an active's CAT scan. The third episode, "Belle Chose", actually felt more like a better start for the season as we see Ballard trying to fit into his new role as well as some wonderfully creepy foreshadowing into the events of Epitaph One. The show has an odd game to play now - making the original premise and plotline around Echo work while also building to a potentially dark future. If it has any problem, it's that the latter is proving a lot more interesting than the former. However, if "Belle Chose" is an indication, this season could prove that the show can finally perform to its potential.

The other "networks show sci fi on Fridays because they assume the demographic never goes out and then complains about the numbers" offering right now is Stargate: Universe. Apparently the demise of Atlantis called for something of a reboot on the frachise, which after a long running core show and relatively long running spin off isn't worst idea. Universe has a different cinematic feel and the overall concept is more serious - it's like someone got some Battlestar in my Atlantis.

Sounds great on paper, but the execution so far is a bit lacking. One issue is that the wide array of characters feel largely similar and the ensemble feels somewhat shallow due to it. The military crew feels almost like a band of dwarves - you have stern, youthful, angry, etc. Two of the characters stand out for me ... one being Doctor Rush, in part because Robert Carlyle's portrayal is particularly awesome and secondly he's such a great throwback to a near villain like Doctor Smith (Lost in Space) than another "brilliant scientist with a gun" cutout that the series could so easily offer up.

Sadly the other character is Eli, who is such a horribly transparent viewer advocate that I fear the array of geek apparel and references to arrive. If his "Last Starfighter" premise of even being in the show wasn't bad enough, the fact that every other character willingly accepts his presence so blindly is even worse. Eli's character is a blow to the kneecaps to the show. Take the second episode, for instance, where one has to continually ask - why are they insisting on keeping the slacker civilian in the desert??

The show's pacing seems slow at the moment, so the jury is still out while we see if that's part of a method or just plodding along.

TV Reminder: Dollhouse Season Two Tonight

Dollhouse gets a second run starting tonight (9/25). It's been left alone on Fridays with the cancellation of The Sarah Connor Chronicles, but at least that frees up Summer Glau for a guest appearance, right? C'mon - it would be awesome. Especially if the guest appearance was as Cameron. Whedon, call my people.

Wait, I have no people.

Anyway, whether Dollhouse can hit the ground running or will find a kind of narrative apex remains to be seen - but seeing it when it airs is probably the best thing for the show at this point (not sure how doing things like buying it off PSN or iTunes factors into the livelihood of a show versus good old Neilsen right now). We're actually going to miss it, hitting the road and going to a fish fry it would seem - but I do have high hopes for this season.

Update: Yeah, OK - as Sterno points out, if you don't have a Neilsen box - might as well buy it online. We'll probably grab it off PSN, if it's there, when we get back.

TV Watch: Virtuality

Virtuality began life as a TV pilot from some of the same crew as Battlestar but ended up as merely a movie, a show that wasn't picked up and something of a tease.

The show follows the crew of the Phaeton, mankind's first interstellar ship, on a mission to find intelligent life around Epsilon Eridani. The show's title refers to the dual nature of the crew also taking part in a reality TV show as well as having access to "virt mods" for virtual reality. Without moving into the realm of spoilers, nothing is quite right on either side of that fence.

There's a lot going on, even for a television pilot gone movie. You have the backdrop of ecological disaster, making the 10 year voyage to the stars critical for the planet. There's a lot of infighting surround the reality show itself, the bizarre problems in virtual reality and the interactions between the twelve person crew.

With so much at work here, and so much of it working quite well - it baffles me how this show didn't at least get a shot. If you look back about a year, you see Fox sticking with the more generic shows (I reallly like both Fringe and Dollhouse, don't ge me wrong) - and ditching the more unique ones ... namely this show and Boldly Going Nowhere. From those I've talked to who have seen the Boldly pilot, it's completely hilarious. And nearly impossible to see.

If anything, Virtuality reminds me a lot of Odyssey Five, a character driven show with some unique sci fi twists and mysteries to it.

At least you can still watch Virtuality on Hulu, which I highly recommend. Still, I would imagine someone could possibly find a copy somehow...

Cancel that order. The video was pulled off Hulu. Now that is a tease.

For Sunday: Surrogates Trailer

Nice.