Premonition (2007)

I hate it.

What a lame film.

Why is it lame? Two reasons: 1) Organization. 2) Its apparent message.

SPOILER ALERT. Read on only if you're fine with learning major details about the film and how it ends.

Organization: In the beginning, Sandra Bullock's husband dies, and she consoles her two daughters, both of which are in perfect health.

Then time travel ensues, and she ends up changing things. She now accidentally makes it so that one daughter mistakenly runs through a glass door, cutting up her face. And this happens before the husband dies. Didn't happen in the first timeline.

So, great! If she can change things, then she can save her husband.

Bullock's time hops enable her to see what happened before. Each time she gets a glimpse of the future, she learns what actions she'd previously taken to get her there.

So any sane, rational, and modestly intelligent person would use that knowledge to their benefit. How? In the past. Bullock would hop to the future, find out what went wrong, and then hop back to the past. This happens in the film.

And there in the past, we expect her to use her knowledge of the future to change things for the better.

But she doesn't. For 2 excruciating hours, we watch as Bullock takes the exact same actions that led to disaster.

Then, at the end of the film, she has a chance to redeem herself, and save her husband. But she for some reason denies the opportunity, and instead ensures his death.

If you remove the part about how she changed history to mess up her daughter's face by mistake, then the film seems to be about how fate is set in stone. This is the apparent message I was talking about earlier.

But the fact that she changes history right away would seem to say, "Hey, there's hope after all!" If you get that impression, as I did, the rest of the movie is a huge letdown.

If you enjoyed this post, please think about becoming a subscriber to my RSS feed.

Paycheck (2003)

I first thought this movie wasn't that great, but I watched it again today and got a lot of enjoyment out of it.

One thing I didn't really like was some apparent hypocrisy.

The whole film is about how Ben Affleck, the hero, had used a machine to see into his future and change it for the better.

The majority of the movie is spent watching him alter his destiny time and again.

Then, halfway through, he discovers that the machine would have been used by the government, and would have predicted disasters that would ultimately be caused by the government's efforts to prevent them.

Then, the bad guy yells at Affleck, "You can't change your fate!"

It's so stupid! He already has... He saved the day, he saved himself, even when the machine clearly showed him as getting shot.

So... what's the lesson? If Affleck used the machine, and instead of ensuring what he saw, he changed it, then why is the machine bad? What is the difference between him and the government? Why would the government achieve different results, using the same machine? Why would they be limited to only ensuring a bad future, when he proved the machine can be used to avoid negative consequences?

Here's a stupid theory: Maybe he's so brilliant he's the only one who can figure out how to rewrite the future.

In spite of this nit-picking, I really did enjoy the film. In any form of movie entertainment, there must usually be some disregard for reality. So putting one more thing aside isn't that big a deal.

If you enjoyed this post, please think about becoming a subscriber to my RSS feed.

Why T3's John Connor Is Wrong

In the first Terminator, John Connor is described as being a hero who brought mankind back from the brink of annihilation.

In Terminator 2, a young John Connor shows that even in his youth, he's still got the mindset of humankind's savior. The "Never Say Die" attitude. The will to win.

In Terminator 3, John Connor was significantly weaker than we'd all come to expect. I don't know if it was the actor playing John Connor, or the director. I'll guess it was the director's fault, because he chose the actor, and guided him.

Maybe the director wanted to take the Terminator series in a new direction. I say that direction was a perversion of everything that makes Terminator cool.

First off, John Connor in T2 didn't take crap from anybody. But in T3, he sees a gas station worker dialing the police, and says, "I think we better leave," with a look on his face of legitimate concern and fear. What???!!! No way. I don't buy it!

And then at the end, nuclear war happens, and the music and movie try to convince us that it's a beautiful thing. BULL!!

I enjoyed the action, seeing Arnold back as a cyborg, and time travel and all. I even enjoyed seeing that psychiatrist guy run away in the graveyard. But I wasn't thrilled with John Connor, and I wasn't impressed by the mentality of the film, a mentality that classified a nuclear holocaust as a good thing. Good because it's inevitable? Just because something happens, or must happen, doesn't make it good.

And here's a big reason why T3's John Connor fails.

In Terminator, John Connor was successful in the future in two endeavors: saving humanity, and sending Kyle Reese to protect Sarah Connor in the past.

In T2, John Connor was successful in two endeavors: helping Sarah Connor escape the Pescadero Mental Institution and the T-1000, and blowing up Cyberdyne.

In T3, all "John Connor" did was hide out in a bunker with some chick who'd established that she'd rather shoot first and ask questions later. JC is supposed to be smart, and ends up betrothed to a tough dummy.

(Evidence: She grabbed his gun and fired away as soon as she met him. Either she knew it was a paint ball gun before she shot him, or learned it was so when he didn't die. I say she didn't know, and didn't care. And that's disgusting.)

Sure, it wasn't his fault that Judgment Day was inevitable. That was the writer's and director's choice.

But look at it this way: To set John Connor up in a universe where his only possible triumph is to just barely survive -- that's lame!

If you enjoyed this post, please think about becoming a subscriber to my RSS feed.

Indiana Jones 4: Judgment Day

I saw an "extended" preview on Fox last night. Just a regular trailer, but with all the secrecy of the film, and the quick, short trailers I was used to, this longer one was great.

Especially since we've got DVR. I slowed it down and noticed a few things.

I knew Karen Allen was in it, but I didn't know how much. I saw her in a car/boat that went off a cliff, and then maybe in the same vehicle going over a waterfall. In that vehicle also were Indy himself, Shia LaBeouf, another guy, and I believe Indy's friend who visited him at the school where he teaches in the first and third films.

Indy's friend looked like he had long hair! But maybe it wasn't him. It has been 18 years, after all, and he already seemed a tad bit old. But maybe...

In a previous ad, I'd seen a crate marked with "Roswell." I'd read that originally the film was meant to be about outer space and stuff. But Spielberg and Ford said no.

However, in the ad last night, it looked like we were seeing the same place where the crate had been filed away from the end of Raiders. That gigantic warehouse? Well, in the ad, two massive doors open. It looks like a hangar. And on the two doors is the number 51. Area 51, Baby!

In the ad, they said an evil empire wanted the newest weapon. If it's not Nazis, then who?

Harrison Ford still looks great. Long live Indiana Jones.

If you enjoyed this post, please think about becoming a subscriber to my RSS feed.

Smallville Episodes Are Like Movies

One or two seasons ago, when "Smallville" tried to play up the superhero universe idea and introduced a bunch of random superheroes to the show, it seemed like it was getting pretty corny. But then, they strayed from that path, and even reduced some of the dialogue. The direction took an entirely new route, and focused on visual spectacle, and implicit dramatic meaning in the action. The show regained it's lost glory, and soared to new heights.

I just watched the latest episode (I believe) in which Clark visits a parallel world where he never existed, where Lana Lang is married, and where Lex Luthor is President. The Luthors discovered Kara's ship and indoctrinated her into the Luthor lifestyle. She now serves Lex, who is being controlled by Brainiac, and who ultimately nukes the world during the course of the episode.

Clark then goes back in time to the day Krypton exploded, and travels to Krypton in order to prevent Brainiac from killing Clark's infant self.

Then Krypton exploded.

It was wild! Just like a movie. It seemed to last as long, because it held your attention throughout the episode. Clark even got to meet a human named Clark Kent who took his place in the Kent household (where Clark's father was still alive).

I enjoyed when Clark met the alternate reality Lois Lane. Since she didn't have any preconceptions to get in the way, she decided Clark was worthy in a romantic sense. So that proves there's hope.

If you enjoyed this post, please think about becoming a subscriber to my RSS feed.

Omen III: The Final Conflict (1981)

I watched all 3 Omen films recently on AMC, and I was somewhat disappointed by the third one. It could have been so much cooler, but it seemed kind of lame.

In the 2nd one, the Antichrist is a teen in military school just finding out that he's the son of the Devil. There's an awe and mystery about his powers, abilities, and the effect he'll have on mankind. He causes local havoc.

In "Final Conflict," the Antichrist is all grown up, and no longer allows the audience to be mystified by what he's all about. He comes right out and says that his only weakness is a set of daggers.

[Spoiler Alert]

In the 1st film, it was explained that the Antichrist must be killed by an entire set of daggers. Yet at the end of "Final Conflict," a single wound from a single dagger kills him. I don't buy that.

I would have liked to see him rise to power while solving all kinds of major world problems, and then begin to enact some of the prophecy, perhaps by installing chips or marks on everybody's right hand or forehead. Then everybody would suddenly realize that the Book of Revelations is coming true, and actions would be taken by humanity to stop him. This would be, I think, a terrific and interesting exploration of what could potentially happen in real life, if you believe in that sort of thing. It would also be neat to see how the Antichrist defended himself from major harm, and was finally defeated by Jesus.

Instead most of these ideas were barely touched upon, and a large portion of Final Conflict's action seemed "small-time."

Still, it did strike me as interesting that the Antichrist wanted to be President, and in preparation for that held interviews in which he began popularizing the concept of allowing our youth a greater hand in world affairs and in politics. He said adults treat the youth as inexperienced an naive, but young people should be allowed have their say. Of course that would serve him, because one of the ideas in the film was that older people were wise enough to recognize that something was wrong with him, and young people could not.

This seems to mirror what is apparently happening with Barack Obama, where he seeks out the youth vote.

Also, Damien (the Antichrist) was being compared with JFK by journalists in the movie. So is Obama.

But this is probably just coincidence.

If you enjoyed this post, please think about becoming a subscriber to my RSS feed.

Challenges Of DVR: Too Little Space

In the future, the hard drives for Digital Video Recorders will hopefully be so huge that there are no problems with space.

But right now, one somewhat odd problem is that sometimes not enough TV is being watched. When you've got Ultimate Power in the DVR box, you say, "That movie looks good. That show looks good. I'll record them digitally, and watch them later."

Eventually you fill the tiny box with various programs, some HD and some not, and then realize that you're so close to 100% capacity that if you don't plunk yourself down for a 4 hour Boob Tube Marathon, you might miss out on some of the films and shows you took the time to save! They'd be deleted automatically to make room for new recordings and automatic series recordings.

So the new rule become, "You must watch at least 1 hour of television a day."

So much for the old school mentality that would rather opt to limit TV time.

If you enjoyed this post, please think about becoming a subscriber to my RSS feed.