Predator (1987)

What a terrific film. The direction is amazing, and the music is incredible. Alan Silvestri did such a great job with building the emotional heights through music. Some parts remind me of "Back to The Future," which he also did the music for.

Wikipedia says Silvestri "was coming off the huge success of Back to the Future in 1985. Predator was his first major action movie and the score is full of his now familiar genre characteristics: heavy horn blasts, staccato string rhythms, and undulating timpani rolls that highlight the action and suspense." Awesome!!!

I really like the scene that comes after the huge buildup of suspense, where all the soldiers know something's really weird, but don't quite know how -- or who -- or what. And then one of them finally sees the Predator, camouflaged, who just killed his best friend. And the guy goes nuts, opens fire, exhausts his weapon, and picks up his buddy's minigun. Mowing down the forest, shouting his head off. And then Arnold and crew show up and join in. Just firing a wall of bullets into the forest. That's a pretty powerful scene. Then again, maybe some people would think it's corny, or macho. What's wrong with macho?!

I finally saw the scene where the Native American guy laughs, and I realized that must have been where the Predator captured the laugh audio, for when he laughs at the end, just before nuking the forest. It all makes sense now! I see the light!!

Suffice it to say, I really enjoy this film.

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James Bond In The Sixties

Lately the Spike channel has been playing James Bond films weekday mornings, so I've been watching a few. It's interesting to compare the culture of our hero from back then with that of today.

In a couple of films (at least) Sean Connery seemed to behave toward women as objects that he could use to aid him in his mission or relax with. Of course this seems pretty standard for any Bond, but I think modern Bond treats women as (near-?)equals to a greater degree than Sixties Bond.

This morning, Diamonds Are Forever was on, and the female lead talked down to Bond and treated him like a child. I thought maybe that was feminine power reasserting itself after a few films of being trod upon.

It was interesting to see another woman's behavior toward Bond versus toward another man. This woman's at a casino, and some guy invites her to stick around, or leave with him, or whatever, and she takes his face in her hands and consoles him that "He's a nice guy, really," but that he's just not right for her. She's about to leave, when she hears Bond placing a bet of something like ten thousand dollars.

Interest piqued, she walks over and insinuates herself into his gambling, taking his dice and throwing them on his behalf. She doesn't do too well. A few minutes later, after he's won $50,000, he gives her $5,000 for her trouble. Then her eyes light up and she remarks that although he's weird, he's a really great guy. He takes her back to his hotel room, and she says it's great. Then thugs throw her out a window (into a pool). Bond then spent some time with the authoritative female lead.

So Bond won the other woman not with looks, charm, charisma, or heroics, but with money. I guess everybody's got their own idea of who the perfect "somebody" is...

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Seven Days TV Pilot

On TV it was 2 hours. For every hour of scheduled programming, usually there are 20 minutes of commercials. So the two episode pilot was 80 minutes long. And boy was it awesome! Good enough to be considered among the ranks of movies.

At the end of the credits, the info said 1998. Something that struck me as interesting about the series is that there are various references made to terrorist threats, a few of which coincided with 9/11. The series ran for 3 seasons, and was canceled in May of 2001. Four months later was 9/11.

What are these references, you ask? Well, in a few different episodes, they mention Osama bin Laden as being dangerous. I'd never even heard of him until after 9/11. And in the pilot episode, a (Russian) terrorist flies a plane into the White House.

Ok, all that aside, the first two episodes were amazing. They featured a fantastic introduction to the series and the scifi. For those who aren't familiar with the premise of the show, it's all about time travel. Something goes wrong for America, and the main character pilots a metal sphere built with alien technology back in time 7 days. Then, with his knowledge of the future, he prevents the bad stuff from happening again. It's awesome.

What was really freaky was the very first scene of the very first episode. You see the craft, in space, with the door floating nearby, and the chrononaut floating outside, frozen, dead. So the question becomes, will our hero suffer the same fate?

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Rush Hour 3 (2007)

What a thrill! I hadn't really been planning on or even looking forward to seeing this, but I just watched it, and it was a lot of fun! There was action, suspense, romance, and comedy. A total entertainment package!

Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker make a great team. They're hilarious together. And I can't believe Jackie Chan is 54! It's amazing.

There were a couple of women who had supporting roles in the movie, as damsels in distress. For some reason, they both disappeared at the end... One was sent off in one direction, and we never got closure with her. The other...I guess was left behind, too. Weird! But the ending was still a hoot.

One thing I really enjoyed was the luxurious suite Jackie Chan's character was able to get. Chan and Rock had just been traveling through some sewers, in France I believe, and they emerged topside and immediately went to a hotel. They asked for everything they needed: 2 rooms, 2 showers, 2 beds, a case of deodorant... the usual (haha). It was fun seeing them get access to everything they needed without any trouble. It's like living vicariously through a rich person. In these trying economic times, vicarious living is the way to go. Onwards to the cinema!

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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.

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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.

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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!

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