The Legend of Hercules

The Legend of Hercules 

 You will believe turds can be filmed.

Wow, Renny Harlin really should stop making movies or either go back to directing school...or something. If I am being honest here, Harlin hasn't made a good movie since Die Hard 2. His latest movie is one of the two movies about Hercules that came out last year. I heard this was the worst of the two, and the critics were right. I have never seen characters written this idiotically, CGI done so badly, and music so poorly written before. It has the whole package of a bad movie.

This thing not only stinks, but it is a CGI flaming turd.

When you're opening battle scene looks like a CGI opening to a PC game from the early 90s, you're doing something really wrong. The really shitty CGI is one thing, but the acting is another can or worms altogether.

When you have a block of wood as your leading star, Kellan Lutz is bland and boring, it just drags your already bad movie down even more. Lutz is just plain dreadful as Hercules. And, it gets worst when he turns into a freedom fight/leader in the third act. Are we supposed to believe Greece will rise up with this hunk of driftwood as their leader? Lutz is not the only one that stinks in this thing, but he's the one that stands out.

The script is beyond being shitty. Every character reminds other characters of their motives and backgrounds in every scene. And, the dialogue is so stilted that George Lucas would be jealous. I haven't seen writing this bad since Grown Ups 2 (I just did that one). I can't believe any writer would left this script out of their sights without punching this up a bit. However, you merge Gladiator with 300 and the Hercules story you get a movie that's trying to poorly remake of Gladiator/300.

Speaking of 300, why do we need the fast/slow ramping speeds in every freaking scene? It no longer special when you keep doing it over and over again, Harlin. I have to wonder if Harlin even has a style of his own because he keep aping every action director in the world in just this very movie. Say what you want about Michael Bay, but he at least has his own fingerprints on his style, even if it is a jumbled mess, but Harlin wants to be Tony/Ridley Scott and Zack Snyder so bad in his direction and editing of this movie is sad and a little depressing.

This guy did Die Hard 2, while not a great movie, it was still really entertaining. Harlin has drained all the talent he had with every movie's he's made since then. This movie might be the height of his shit-pile.

The movie is even structured in the same plot setup just like Gladiator. Hercules gets captured and sold into slavery. There's even a gladiator master just like the one from the real movie. Then the movie shifts into 300 with its poorly done ramping-speed fight scenes and CGI rain. We get a third act that no one cares about and then it proceeds to “reset” any meaningful emotional ending we wanted out of the last battle with a happy ending that completely comes out of left field.

This is NOT 300 or Gladiator. Stop it.

For a 70 million dollar movie, EVERYTHING looks cheap. Everything! It screams TV movie with every green screen and CGI shot. The sets are below most of the sets from a Xena episode. Actually, the Xena episodes looked better. Even the score is produced with a synthesizer, thus making the music sound like the shit from Hercules the TV series. I am not sure where this 70 million dollar budget went, but it certainly wasn't on screen.

I hate this movie, but it is so bad that it needs to be seen. You might get a laugh out of it. You'll marvel at how much money wasted on the cheap green screens, the bad CGI, and piss-poor acting. The movie ended up losing money and didn't do as well as the studio thought it would overseas. Harlin knocks it out of the park again with another bad movie, thus keeping his losing streak intact.

Grade: D-

 Dude in the Water:  I am not going to lie, Lutz is a good looking man.  And, this is coming from a straight guy. 

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Dinosaurs: Changing Nature (That last episode)

Dinosaurs: Changing Nature (That last episode)

I was listening to the TV Guidance Counselor podcast and the host has mentioned the rather dark ending to the comedic show Dinosaurs. The episode might be one of the most grim ending to a show ever. Plus, this show was kind of aimed at children and teenagers. While I hated the baby and the old grandmother, I thought the humor and the puppet stuff was amazing. 

I loathed everyone that did the baby reenactment.  I never found the baby that amusing. 

While Netflix has the episode listed as episode 7, it was supposed to be the very last episode of the season (series). There were a bunch of episodes un-aired because the network canceled the show earlier than the producers had intended. So, they put this episode out early to tie the show up.

I just watched it on Netflix. Man, I am bummed out.

Since it was the last episode, they literally kill off the entire family and the entire world. And, the main characters is partly responsible for it too! And, the grim part about it is that they basically end the show with us knowing that the entire family is in their house freezing to death. Wow, that is very bold.

The other thing worth noting is the Dinosaurs did it to themselves. They nuked volcanoes in order to fix an environmental problem and pretty much killed themselves in the process. Instead of a giant rock from space, it was the Dinos themselves that created the Ice Age. 

  Actually, the episode isn't as preachy as people say. They  tell a story (in 30 mins) that has an organic moral or message without the story grinding to a halt. It shows you how killing off an entire race of smaller animals could have a bigger impact on our surroundings. How many times have we tried to solve environmental problems, but it made things worst in the long run? This does it in a story form without stopping and say, “You see...”. And, basically the main character is partly the reason things go from being bad to terrible because he should have stood up.

The show ends with these characters certainly dying off in a freezing house. That is just harsh, but it takes balls to do that. 

However, I am a little depressed.   

I can't get enough of “Yee”

I can't get enough of “Yee”

The Yee meme has really blown up recently. I've seen Yee photos in 4 and 8 chan posts and other things. It even has its own sub-reddit. I introduced this strange meme to a co-worker and he introduced it to some friends. They started using the Yee Song as a ring tone. It is funny that this became a thing last year, but has been around for a while. Even the guy that started the meme is surprised it became a thing.

Here are some of my favorites.

Wrecking Yee

Ghost-Busters Yee

Yeeman

Pizza Guy gets screwed

Pizza Guy gets screwed

I know the title sounds like a porn scene, but it is actually a real story about a bunch of car dealership folks really screwing over a pizza delivery guy out of a tip. And, they did it in the most dick-ish way possible.

The bill came up to 43 bucks and the dealership guys gave him a 50 dollars worth of bills. From the consumerist.com, ((The driver shows up to deliver the pizzas, which came to a total price of $42 and some odd cents. He received $50 — two $20 bills and two $5 bills, and while this part isn’t in the video, he says he confirmed with the workers that they wouldn’t need change and left, thinking he’d gotten a $7 tip. ))

If you're going to spend up to 43 bucks, and give the guy 50, just let him have the change. Basically, the dealership guys called the pizza place back and demanded the 7 dollars in change. So the pizza guy had to drive back to dealership. I can understand why the guy was pissed at these folks.

Here's the best part. The video was posted on the Internet by the Car Dealership guys! They called it ((irate pizza driver )). Why did they think they would look like heroes in this story? They look like total dicks. Yet, they think they're in the right. They deleted the original video.

While I don't think pizza guy needs the donations from the Internet, save it for a sick kid or something, people get stiffed all the time. I do enjoy reading the Yelp reviews on the dealership. I am not saying the deserves seven bucks, but we've seen in the past that people will misuse the Internet's goodwill. By the way, even the dealership's YT ads are getting low ratings.

If I believed in Karma...

Star Wars Holiday Special revisited

Star Wars Holiday Special revisited

The guys over at Red Letter Media reviewed the very off-putting Holiday Special. I've already wrote about this special. I find it shocking that many younger people have no idea this existed. I always mention special whenever some talks about how bad Episode 1 is. It is a struggle to sit through the entire Special, but I think every SW fan should force themselves to sit through it once.

They're right that this special was just a variety show. Heck, it was produced by a group that made variety shows. This was clearly a product of the 70s. Thankfully, this type of show isn't popular anymore. 

Yes, they are covering up a lot with the heavy makeup.

This special was released in 78, a year later from A New Hope. Yes, it was after the horrible car accident Mark Hamill had in 77. I think the heavy makeup in this special was to cover some of the scars Hamill had.  I could be wrong, but he looks completely different in Episode V.

Lucas hated the show so much he vowed to never have it released again. Lucas had little to nothing to do with this special. It was shown once on CBS and promptly never shown again officially. It should also be noted that Lucas LIKED Battlefield Earth.  And, he picked some of the worst actors to play Anakin Skywalker. 

-Harrison Ford does NOT want to be there. He clearly hated every minute being on the set. I mean he looks completely bore or pissed in most of his scenes.

-Carrie Fisher : Damn, I not sure where she looks more coked up here or in the Blues Brothers movie.

-Speaking of Fisher, I found this rather amusing. From the wiki page, ((On the 2010 television program Times Talk, New York Times columnist David Carr asked Carrie Fisher about the special; she said that she made George Lucas give her a copy of the special in exchange for recording DVD commentary for the Star Wars films. She added that she shows it at parties, "mainly at the end of the night when I want people to leave." ))

-Is the HS still canon? Is it now part of the history and time-line of Star Wars? What about those Ewok movies?

-Here's the best part. Kenner actually planned on having action figures from the Special released to the public. They went as far as designing and making prototypes of the figures. The Chewbacca family was built. 

Grown Ups 2 (Part 2)

Grown Ups 2 (Part 2)

You know the movie is in trouble when it literally ends on a fart joke.  Yes, Sandler ends his movie on a big wet fart.  Yes, a big fart sums up this entire movie.  The movie begins with a piss joke and ends on a fart joke.  The circle of shit?

Now, there is another good thing about the movie.  There is NO Rob Schneider in this piece of crap.  Rob doesn’t infect this movie with his horrible wormy character.  However, they added a character that is a brother to the Schneider character.  This new character is much, much worst than Schneider.  It is in the form of Nick Swardson.  Swardson’s character might actually be the worst character written in any Adam Sandler.

Swardson is Sandler's buddy, so that means he has to be in every movie that Sandler makes. And, his scenes are so unfunny that they alone will ruin the movie for you.  Nick plays a stoned bus driver that gets messed around by the guys. His introduction is bad and it goes down hill from there.  I know people like his standup, but I hope they don't like his movies. Holy crap, Swardson is really-really bad and just another reason NOT to watch this movie.

-Shaq Attack: As I said before, Shaq can and will stink up your movie. He's not funny here and not even remotely entertaining in most of the movies he’s plagued. He's about the same as his small role in Freddy Got Fingered. This time we get a fake hairline, which is not funny.  Why was he in the movie again?

-Chris Rock: Okay, some of his individual scenes aren't bad. The cable guy bit was sort of funny, but it has nothing to do with the rest of the movie.  They were clearly written his scenes for his brand of humor. He's a side character when it comes the rest of the group of guys though. And, what's with the strange Humpty-Hump reference in the form of a character named Bumpty?  All the Bumpty stuff was bad real bad.  And, the stuff with his daughter was lamely paid off in the third act. 

-Salma Hayek role and plot come across as emotional and worrisome. She wants a baby and starts to cry and bug Sandler about it throughout the movie. She is only in the movie to show that Sandler can pull in a hot wife.  I hate everything about this subplot. 

-No shirt no shot:  Sandler at one point has to take off his shirt: The camera makes sure to shoot him from only the upper chest up. Thankfully, we don't have to see man flab from him. I know what he means though. I am no prize with my shirt off either. I just wanted to point it out.

-Taylor Lautner isn't bad. If I am being honest, he's actually a better actor here than in the Twilight movies. He's certainly a fit guy with some interesting MMA moves. He's supposed to be the main villain…if this movie had a conventional narrative.

-What was the purpose of the car wash scene? No one knows.  And, the payoff with Shaq was unfunny and gets worst as the scene goes on. 

With additions of Nick Swardson and Shaq, they've made a worst movie than the first one. The movie is just a collection of bad improvised skits and multiple unfunny jokes involving male crotches. The women come across as being needy or crazy, but not in a funny way. The kids have more to do, but their subplots only make the movie more of a mess.  We get the 80s bullshit we always get from Sandler, but this time around it is REALLY unfunny and cheap. 

Somewhere along the way, Sandler forgot how to be funny and just cashed in to whatever company was willing to pay for his brand of shit humor. He's just stop trying and just cast his friends in an extended vacation trip in the form of an 80 million dollar movie. He clearly didn’t spend it on the CGI, because that FX was bad.  It’s lazy and lame.  Sadly, this movie sums up Sandler's career of late.

The movie also shows a trend of making movies a collection of gags without having a central plot. The fact this movie made a lot of money proves that people don't really care about things such as narrative and cohesive storytelling. Avoid this movie if you can.

Grade: F+

   Simpson/Family Guy did it better. Sorry. 

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  Yes, we have a 80s party. How about a 90s party? Check out most of Sandler movies, they all have callbacks to the 80s. I love the 80s, but please not in every movie. 

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 Yes, there is a Free Throw joke in the movie.  It would have been funny say ten years ago.  Wait, he actually did have a free throw joke ten years ago in that Steel movie! 

I hate both of these type of Gamers...however (bit of a rant)

I hate both of these type of Gamers...however (bit of a rant)

Thanks to Redditfor showing this. I hate the Guy/Dude/Bro gamer that talks so much shit and belittles the nerd type gamers. You're insults aren't funny. We get it you made fun or beat up his types in high school. A lot of nerdy gamers took to gaming to get away from your types.

The nerd guy is someone that needs some sunlight and he's annoying too. He's like that one creepy gamer that hangs out in arcades alone and waits for you to play a player vs player game. He'll join in beat the crap out of your player and take over the game as if it means something. We've all had those encounters.

Both of them have forgotten that gaming should be for fun and escape.

Is this staged? It feels a bit too WCW to me

However, the worst person in the video is the hype man/second banana/promoter guy in the background. He's the guy in the red shirt looking over the Bro-dude's shoulder and keeps looking at him as if he wants to make sweet love to him. I mean look at red shirt's expressions. He keeps pointing, mugging and nodding to the camera. He's like those annoying promoters in those wrestling promos that keep bouncing around. Usually, heels have these type of promoters.

Please note the “fake” drinking from the bottle. Come one, dude.

These ass-hats are the same guys that try to start a fight between two people by egging them on. “Bet you won't hit!” These are the guys hate the most out of everyone.

Grown Ups 2 (Part 1 of 2)

Grown Ups 2 (Part 1 of 2)

Grown Ups 2 (Part 1 of 2)

This movie opens up with Sandler taking deer piss from a CGI deer.  Isn’t that funny? Nope.  The movie isn’t funny. 

Adam Sandler managed to make the most anti-movie in history.  With no real central plot and some on the fly jokes stringed together, you get a sequel that is far worst than the original.  Little Nicky is a masterpiece compared to this thing and I am sorry for giving that movie so such crap.   Sadly, LK was a box office bomb and GU2 is actually a hit despite it rather high budget.  We’ll see another one.  How does North America keep supporting these bad movies?  Stop it.

F’ the plot because there really isn’t one.  All the scenes are disconnected from each other and the jokes keep going on in that scene until they run out gas.

There are a lot of sports cameos.  We get it, Sandler, you like sports.   He likes to fill all his movies with sports cameos, but almost all of them come across as stilted and bad because they’re not actors.  Of course, Shaq is the worst thing to show up in movies and stinks up the place with his shitty acting.  You think Shaq would have improved over the years, but he’s still the same shitty slow-talking actor.  Shaq will ruin your movie and he does here.  

Throw in a lot of gay and transgender jokes and you have a typical Adam Sandler movie here.  I am okay with offensive jokes as long as they’re funny.  However, here they come across as being lazy and are just they’re for the “Guy/Dude/Bro?” sports crowds that watch his movies. 

Make sure you cram in all the products you can into the movie.  Jack up the budget and throw in as many real products as you can.  They made this movie for 80 Million.  The CGI is really bad and the locations aren’t that great either.  Where did the money go?  Where did the product placement money go? 

There is another callback to the 80s…again.  I love the 80s too, but you don’t have to keep throwing in 80s jokes and references into every single movie that you make Sandler. This one is a fairly big reference because the third act is nothing but everyone dressed as 80s characters and icons.  It’s not funny anymore, Adam.  It is pure laziness.  Why would the younger people dress up in 80s costumes?  They wouldn’t even know about most the 80s stuff.

Sandler isn’t even trying.  He is truly sleepwalking throughout.  Only Stone Cold Steve Austin gives a shit and is trying to be funny, and he’s barely in the movie.  This is sad.

Star Trek: TNG Sins of the Father (Deleted scenes).

Star Trek: TNG Sins of the Father (Deleted scenes). 

 Head over to Trek Core and watch these deleted moments from one of my favorite episodes of TNG Sins of the Father. SOTF is kind of a subplot with Worf and the Klingons that we will see carried out from this episode all the way to the final episodes of DS9. Worf's dishonor would be something that would be mentioned through both TNG and DS9, even when he gets his honor back both times. An episode like this would have never been made under Gene's rule on TNG.

Gene sort of had a dislike for Klingons it seems. Worf was kind of a bruiting fool that kept getting his ass handed to him in the first two seasons. And, Gene had to be convinced to have Worf on as main characters. It was later revealed that Gene fought hard with Lenard and the director of ST:VI on an early cut of the film, which dealt with Klingons. At this point, Berman and Pillar had a lot of control over TNG (and Lenard would take control of ST:VI). The writers on the movies and the series actually made the Klingons an interesting race that still this day have a huge following. A lot of this was done without Gene.

I think Gene wanted to the Klingons to be the bad guys in order to show how “great” humans were, and he fought against making them a well rounded race.

These deletions are a nice look into some of the stuff cut for time and some of it cut for pacing.

-There is a nice Wesley Crusher moment deleted: We now get more interaction between Kurn and Wesley and shows why Kurn is kind of pissed with Wes. The deleted callback is a nice moment where Wesley strongly replies to Kurn's order for the Klingon Homeworld with a forecful “Ready sir”. This should have been kept in. It gives Wes character development. But, TV is on a strict time limit (until cable shows started extending times slots)

-On the Homeworld, Riker has an interesting comment about how things have changed between the Feds and the Klingons. Humans being in the great hall could have meant a death sentence back in Kirk's time.

~Riker and Picard leave during the opening arguments: Smart deletion. I think I'd like to see them stay because they are friends of Worf. Even if my friend told me to leave, I'd try to stay for support.

~Duras has more bargaining chips for Kurn: I can see why this was deleted.

~K'mpec challenges Duras, showing there is still more bite in the old Klingon leader. Duras backs down.

~There is more info about Kurn. We would see what happens to Kurn in DS9 once Worf's honor and name were taken away for a second time. Kurn falls on hard times, just like K'mpec talks about in this deleted cuts. That's very interesting. 

Bobwhite Bird: Holy Crap they're real

Bobwhite Bird: Holy Crap they're real

I was very close to my grandfather when I was very young. He would take us to see trains on the old Southern Railroad line and other things like explore the woods behind his house. I remember him telling me about a certain bird called the “bobwhite”. He told us they called the bird a Bobwhite because it sounded like the bird call said, “Bob White”. And, if you listen carefully, it does sound like it is saying, “Bob White”.

I was watching Doc Hollywood today and noticed that the bird call for a “bobwhite” is heard after the peeing scene. I remember the story my grandfather said and wondered, Are these birds actually called Bobwhites?

I looked it up on the Wiki page and there is a group of bird actually called the Bobwhites and they are named after their bird calls! I thought maybe it was just an old country thing that my grandfather was telling us, but it is real.

I'm not sure why that story stayed with us.

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (Part 2 of 2)

 The Amazing Spider-Man 2  (Part 2 of 2)

 It’s like Sony wanted to top load this second movie with so much stuff in order to compete with Marvel’s movies.  There are a lot of set-ups that aren’t necessary.  I just feel that the overall movie is weakened by all the subplots.  And, some of the subplots are just dropped and never fully payoff.  It is clear they want to make more Spider-Man movies, but it needs to be done organically.  

You can also see where the studio took to cutting certain things while adding other things.  Mary-Jane Watson was supposed to be in the movie and even had some scenes, but was completely dropped from the movie.  In this case, it was probably a good idea to drop that subplot. 

The Green Goblin is almost an after thought for most of the story.  Heck even shows up right after the threat of Electro.  Harry Oswald is in the movie a lot, but the movie doesn’t integrate his relationship with Electro that well and it feels like the “team up” from Spider-Man 3.  Dane DeHaan is good in the role, but I needed more and a stronger motivation for him to behave in such a villainous manner.  Perhaps, his disease started to affect his mind?  However, he was short-changed too.

I also felt the relationship between Peter and Harry was a bit rushed too, given this character is new to the franchise.  Somehow, we are to believe these two had a relationship years ago.  At least the Sam Raimi’s movies set up their relationship within three movies. 

I believe the movie would have been stronger with just the Electro storyline with some world-building minor points here and there.  The concept of an electronic man could have been explored to its fullest with just the story just on Jamie Foxx’s character.  Instead we get the story about his parents, Gwen Stacy’s father (ghost), the Osborn Corp shady deals, the romance subplot with Harry’s assistant and the Russia villain (Rhino). 

The other problem is some of the CGI during the last battle is bit to computer-ish for my taste.  It feels like Sony ran out of money to render some of the CGI shots, such as the airplanes.  I guess they didn’t want to spend too much money. 

Then, there is that corny little kid “Spider-Man” scene.  I can’t believe they put that into the movie. 

The narrative is a jumbled mess, but they got Spider-Man character right.  The movie had potential to be a better movie, but studio interference has really harmed the story.  If Sony makes another movie, strip down the story and focus on a villain and less subplots. It is still entertaining just troubled. 

Grade: C

Younger woman vs older woman Subway

Younger woman vs older woman

I'm sorry, but the older woman had enough of the younger (faked haired) woman's shit. Why was fake hair woman still talking shit? Younger black women, you don't have to have the last word in every argument. Fake Hair seems shrill, loud and stupid.

And, you know that the older woman is a scrapper because she has some weight on you. When older woman loses it, she really loses it! She takes down Fake Hair rather quickly.

Younger people, stop talking shit and running up into people's faces. You may not like what happens next. 

I hate what has happened to the black community.  

Mass Effect 4 Stuff?

Mass Effect 4

-No more Commander Shepherd. People saying he probably be a legend. 

 -There will be new alien races, plus Krogan. I love the Krogan. You shouldn't have a ME series with Krogan, they're the Klingons of ME. Heck, an actor that help shape the Klingons played a Krogan. They even quote a Lloyd from ST3 in one of the games.

-How can you have a direct sequel given the major changes to the galaxy after the three endings to ME3? You're going to have make it a new galaxy probably.

-Will it be called Mass Effect 4? On one hand, if this is a new start, it might be smart to go with a new name. And, it wipes away the disdain for ME3's ending. On the other hand, ME is a name-brand and it does sell games on its own. Everything that is a spinoff of Star Trek/Star Wars/Stargate have their main franchise name first and the name of that series second. It's branding.

-By the way, check out some concept art for the ME series by one of the artists. There are some strange but cool designs there. I would have like some of the other “bad guy” designs there. They're very strange and would have given them a different non-Halo look.

-The Mako is making a return. Some people hated the Mako levels, and others loved it.

-There is a version of the game that is playable. However, I am not sure how far along the story is. Remember, the story is very important to the gameplay and does change certain things. You can avoid certain battles all together with your story choices. Here's hoping the game doesn't shift gears from its original planned ending like ME3, which was set up in ME2 and completely dropped in ME3. (Remember all that talk of Dark Energy/Matter?)