Trailer of the Month

Tuesday, May 27, 2014

GODZILLA ***Small Spoilers*


The world's most famous monster is pitted against malevolent creatures who, bolstered by humanity's scientific arrogance, threaten our very existence (Imbd).

When I first heard they were going to make a new Godzilla, I thought here we go again. I mean, I don`t trust these remakes as far as I can throw them because most often than not, they screw it up. So let's break it down, shall we?

The movie begins with some 'historical' footage of people nuking things - am talking mushroom cloud kind of nuking. Fast forward years later to  1999 where Dr. Serizawa and his team are flown into the Philippines because a mine they were digging at caved in and they found some fossils and a weird looking cocoon thing hanging from the ceiling of the cave.  Around that same time, Joe Brody (Bryan Cranston - Walter from Breaking Bad) his wife and son live in Japan--a place called Janjira. He has a job like Homer Simpson at a nuclear power plant in Japan - and incidentally he works there with his wife and he's been picking up some strange readings--sorta like aftershocks from earthquakes and they're getting bigger, more forceful--to make matters worse, they're picking up major EMP interference.  All hell breaks lose when something cause the power plant to be destroyed, killing Joe's wife and most of the people working at the plant. 

Now skip ahead fifteen years, Joe's son Ford is all grown up (played by Aaron Johnson - Kick-Ass from Kick-Ass), a high ranking soldier in the army with a wife, Elle (Elizabeth Olsen - yes she's sisters with the twins). He just gets home when he gets a call telling him his father was arrested for trespassing in the quarantined zone - Janjira. Now Ford has to go back to Japan to save his father and somehow gets talked into going back to the quarantined zone. Soon, the two are caught up in a game of cat and mouse with two large cockroaches looking monsters and a Godzilla on the hunt.

For the beginning of the new Godzilla was slow. While I understood why it was like that, I couldn't help sitting there thinking, wow--it needs to move on already. About forty five minutes in, things picks up. Though it leaves some confusion as to where they're going with the story. While there are some things, militarily that would never go over well with the real military and the soldiers never once saluted or stood at attention when their superiors entered a space - that I found a little problematic. Why? Whoever research military procedures really screwed up on that end.  There were a few times when I thought someone didn't fact-check a few things and other times when I wondered what the point of a scene was for they carried the story to a certain point then merely let it go and you're left wondering.  There were a few times I found I was laughing with my friend because of something that probably wasn't meant to be funny. A few times everyone one else in the theatre erupted in laughter as well.

The movie was great - if you look past the typical nit-picking that I'm doing with this movie.  I mean what movie doesn't have some continuity/scripting issues? The graphics were stellar, the monsters, the crushed buildings--it was so real. The acting was amazing. I was very happy to see Bryan Cranston playing the role of Joe Brody. The new spin of the Godzilla monster was something I welcomed, even found myself cheering for the him. Aside from a few Godzilla fat jokes but that as it. Sitting there, watching the newly designed model tear ass from Japan to San Francisco, I was positively giddy. 

All in all I had a great time with this movie aside from the typical.  If you want a good, kinda scary, plenty of eye-candy movie with monsters galore, then check this movie out. If you're obsessive compulsive about military procedures then you may want to skip it but everyone else - you will enjoy GODZILLA!

Hugs,
Kato

Thursday, May 22, 2014

Gang Related - New Series on FOX

So, for a few weeks now I've been seeing ads for this new show coming to FOX called GANG RELATED and I figured, wow, okay, this looks promising. Then again I try not to get attached to shows on FOX because we all know what happens - They get canned like FIREFLY and ALMOST HUMAN - yes my friend, ALMOST HUMAN went the way of the dinosaurs. 

Anyway, I watched GANG RELATED what a load of bullshit! (pardon my French) but come on. Who writes this stuff? It's the same racist crap they've been trying to shove down our throats since forever. Well I guess Racist is such a strong word let's downgrade that to stereotypes--and not in the best of ways either. The question now becomes -  Why is it that this show has a visible minority cast and they are ALL dirty? Think I'm overreacting? Let's break it down-- oh and Bee-Tee-Dub, if you're going to watch this piece of crap, you may not want to read the following because there WILL be some spoilers.

1. The Korean cop has links to the Korean Mafia. The only saving grace is I LOVE Sung Kang (From the Fast and Furious movies - he plays Han)
2. The Hispanic cop (that dude from HOSTEL that got his fingers cut off) who should be the lead good guy turns out he's a dirty cop who is just on the force since his "adopted" father is the head of a Mexican mafia and his primary job is to find out when the cops are gonna go busting the others so he can go report it to his mafia 'father' - and this guy is also in love with his brother's girlfriend--oh wait, scratch that, fiancĂ©e 
3. The ONLY African American's in the first episode are a bunch of uzi totting, crack smoking bad guys
4. The Caucasian male - (That old dude from LOST and 5-0 - Terry Quinn I think his name is) is the head of a group of good cops on a task force .
5. A Caucasian ADA (that chick who played Quinn in One Tree Hill - come now ladies I know our eyes were somewhere else but she was in there, I promise- who incidentally is the daughter of the head of the task force *eye roll*
6. Another blond guy who is a part of Internal Affairs
7 Rza - he's in it and is a cop on the task force - I think- but you see him like twice in the whole episode but apparently he's in 10 episodes so far.

What makes me really upset? The in your face stereotypes in this television show. Trust me, you are not doing us any favours by putting on a television show with the main cast being visible minorities and still making them gun-crazed, disloyal, dishonest, egotistic assholes that no one can like.  

I think this television show is a load of crap. The acting is shitty, the writing is boring and it is the SAME old the Mexican has to be Mafia, the Korean has to be in a gang, the black has to carry around guns blowing crap to kingdom-come and the white guy always does the right thing and saves us all *eye roll* how predictable? The only thing missing from this barage of crappy stereotype is the black guy dying first!

Don't waste your time  (it's horrible) and don't get attached (it's on FOX). Go watch LONGMIRE over on A&E, it's better writing, better characters and a better soundtrack.

Kato