Hollywood is a lot like that idiotic kid of yours who, no matter how much confidence you allow, just can’t do anything right. You set up some optimism, let some benefit of the doubt slip in, and there he goes disappointing you yet again until you just stare at him thinking “Can’t you do anything right?” While Paul WS Anderson is that bad influence who keeps digging his hands into your affairs and fucking it up. In one drawn out obnoxious plot device, the sexy cheerleader girl asks her humble love interest: “Now… are you looking at me or the clock?” It’s almost as if she was talking to me, and I had to answer: “The Clock… the clock. Is it over yet?”
Tag Archives: Sequel
Open Water 2: Adrift (2006)
I don’t know what I thought of “Open Water 2” in the end. I mean everyone knows by now that it’s not technically a sequel, just another movie that was branded “Open Water 2” but it makes its connection to the first film pretty much incidentally. As “Adrift” this is a hellish and grueling thriller that’s reliant of course on paranoia, elemental danger, and being marooned in an area with no hope of rescue or miracles. I’m a huge fan of the original movie “Open Water,” which is one of the most underrated and excruciating experiences ripped from the headlines that translated well. “Adrift” is along the same themes involving a group of friends who go yachting and find themselves in the middle of the ocean stuck in the water after forgetting to pull down the ladder on the boat. As the hours wage on, character Amy’s newborn daughter is still aboard starving and suffering from the heat, and now the folks have to find a way to get on the boat before she dies.
Live Free or Die Hard: Unrated Version (2007)
So, I opted on the DVD to watch the Unrated version, which sported a few F bombs and a little more edge. I’m sure the Rated and Unrated version probably didn’t sport many differences, but I owed it to myself to give the Unrated version the top priority. I won’t babble about Die Hard, or why the PG-13 rating is stupid, instead I’ll talk about Mary Elizabeth Winstead. This girl is absolutely gorgeous and sure, she may not be Meryl Streep, but she’s definitely one of the finer girls in film today and I dig her role her as John McClane’s daughter Lucy who is, like her dad, rebellious, smart mouthed, and always seems to stare evil down the throat with a smirk.
White Noise 2: The Light (2007) (DVD)
I always say that if you’re going to derive from another better and well established concept, you’d better sure as hell do it well. Or do it to the point well it feels unique. The sequel to “White Noise” is a bonafide take on my favorite “Twilight Zone” episode of all time, “The Purple Testament.” Except this time it’s updated to a man who has a Near Death Experience after attempting suicide. When he returns from the dead, he can see white auras around people who are about to die. As well he can also hear EVP’s, and see transmissions of the dead on televisions, and he’s really about to experience something he never thought was possible. “White Noise 2” is by all accounts a superior film to the original, and that’s odd considering the original had so much potential, while this sequel had the odds stacked against it.
Cinema Crazed's Worst 10 of 2007
10. Blood & Chocolate
It’s a shame that the movies with the most interesting concepts always end up sucking the most. I looked forward to “Skinwalkers” and from the looks of it, it was a failure, and the same goes for “Blood & Chocolate” a film that is just nothing more than spin off of Anne Rice’s shtick turning werewolves into cheesy Goths who battle over women and hunt people in the woods for no real apparent reason. And like a bad Saturday morning cartoon they transform by the light of a rainbow and all of their clothes and jewelry also transforms with them. There’s also the director’s attempts to mimick Parkour by having his characters running and bouncing off of walls with their feet for no reasons at all. For all intents and purposes Agnes Bruckner is still a fox, but this movie is more of her wasted potential.
Resident Evil: Extinction (2007)
I’ve come to grips with the fact that we may never be able to have an almost accurate and horrifying zombie film stemming from “Resident Evil,” but perhaps someday someone will reboot the franchise and actually create some great zombie flicks. In case you didn’t know it, “Extinction” recaps the entire three films, including the story of Umbrella ad nauseum, and yes, there’s nothing like a warmed over sense of tension and suspense. From the first five minutes, it’s pretty obvious this has no idea what it wants to be, but truly, it’s just another episode in an ongoing franchise, regardless of the pretense it sets up that it’s the final film in the series. It’s not.
Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007)
Some comic books just aren’t meant to be made into movies. There are just some concepts that look great on a page with a great artist that completely fails to translate on screen. “Fantastic Four” will forever be one of the prime examples of this argument. Tim Story and co. have failed to prove many people wrong in the assertion that this story can be turned into a serious action packed movie. On its surface it’s artificial fluff, a complete piece of colorful junk like cotton candy that’s there for nothing more than to look pretty and provide you with an instant bit of pleasure, and yet really has no long lasting effects or nutritional value.