Category: Movies

Friday the 13th: A New Beginning (1985)

Whoever buried Jason can’t tell the difference between 6′ and 6″  Oh, it was a dream, never mind.

Ooh boy, we got an extra unpleasant batch of victims today.

Poor Jason…didn’t even get to draw first blood this time around (the dream doesn’t count.)

Poor lil’ black dude’s older brother.  He was too cool for this world.

Poor crazy psycho-hillbilly  lady.  She was too white trash for this world.

Bad alternator? That is one dead battery.

Jason’s theme is supposed to be “ki ki ki ki ma ma ma ma” but it’s always sounded like “chu chu chu chu pah pah pah pah” to me.

Rating: chu out of pah

Pete’s Dragon (2016)

(MAKING GUTTURAL NOISES)

Maybe I should have re-watched the original first…it’s been a few decades.

(MAKING GUTTURAL NOISES)

I wonder how Elliot’s camouflage works.  It just made sense for the cartoon version to turn invisible; this version is too grounded in reality.

(MAKING GUTTURAL NOISES)

Listening to vinyl is either a period appropriate activity, or they are all hipsters.  The car designs look pretty old, so I’m leaning more towards the former.

(MAKING GUTTURAL NOISES)

OK, I’ve officially been watching too many horror films…when Elliot saw Pete with his new family I imagined Elliot becoming jealous and killing them off, one by one, so he can be alone with his boy.

(MAKING GUTTURAL NOISES)

I wish the subtitles only included dialog, there’s only so many times you can read (MAKING GUTTURAL NOISES)

It doesn’t feel like enough happened for this to have a 103 minute running time.

Cube (1997)

Opening death: Ahhh, Cubed by the cube. Clever.

Extreme efficiency!  They only had to build one set, then they just moved the panels around and changed the lighting!

These types of film are certainly bad about not having any characters you actually care about.  On the plus side, you end up feeling really good every time another a-hole bites the dust.

Rating: 4 out of 6 sides of a cube

Hellraiser: Inferno (2000)

The Lament Configuration just keeps getting easier and easier to solve.  At this rate, it won’t be too much longer before someone will just breathe on it and it will go off.

3 pins / Pinhead’s head

Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991)

Eh, it’s about what I expected.

The kill count seemed a bit low; but I guess 5 only had 3 Freddy kills in it as well.

Death by chalkboard was interesting.  I was kind of hoping the other deaths would be tailored to each person as well; but they weren’t.

I don’t think the weird-ass snake things were necessary.  Freddy needs no explanation; Freddy is a force of nature.  Finger-blade goes in, finger-blade goes out. Never a miscommunication.

Babylon 5: The Legend of the Rangers: To Live and Die in Starlight (2002)

Twice as long as a normal B5 episode, yet it still only feels like it has a single episode worth of content.

It was nice seeing G’Kar again, though, he was the only familiar face.  I guess they saved money on cheaper actors or something.

The ship had a weird weapon control system.  The gunner would drop into a sphere that projected an image of space around her, then she would spin around and punch and kick to FIRE ZE LAZORS!  …but this just ends up looking like Dragon Ball Z.

3 Babylon Stations out of 5

Earth to Echo (2014)

Trying too hard to be E.T. for millennials?

The alien builds something out of junk to help him get home.

The alien “dies” and comes back to life.

The kids and the alien escape from the Feds in a stolen van.

Speaking of which, the Feds are real a-holes in this movie; I guess stealing from children is OK when SPACE ALIENS are involved, also kidnapping; but at least they don’t threaten the kids with guns…or walkie-talkies.

There was a part where two of the kids were arguing about something; I don’t  really know why, it felt like a scene was missing or something because I didn’t see any reason for them to be fighting like that so suddenly for no reason.

I don’t know who the shaky-cam is supposed to appeal to.  I see people on Youtube all the time having a cow about the video shaking around too much.

Boring overall, ok vfx  – 1/5 walkie-talkies

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017)

I noticed them using the rule of three with the fruit isn’t ripe joke; I didn’t really find that joke to be very funny any of the three times it was used.

Drax seems to have been dumbed down considerably from the first movie.  I remember him being a lot more serious.

I didn’t like Kurt Russell ending up being the bad guy; but I guess that just gave it more impact.

Yondu’s redemption really parallels Darth Vader’s.  Formerly evil Father/father figure sacrifices himself so the hero can live.

Funny how all green girl and blue girl had to do to resolve their conflict was talk to each other.  that would have saved a lot of grief if they had done it sooner.

Interesting choice of a Zune for the replacement music player; It does seem oddly appropriate though.

8/10 groots

Red Skelton’s Christmas Dinner

Ahh, what a classic.

I haven’t seen this in years; but I just suddenly remembered the part where his finger is stuck in the coin return slot on the pay-phone, and he picks up the receiver and yells, “Give me my finger back!”