Underworld: Awakening

Underworld: Awakening: BORING

bor·ing
adj.
Uninteresting and tiresome; dull.

Sums it up!


Well...


Yep I finally got around to watching this damn film.

This was the 5th time I started the film and finished it...It will be the last time too.

First the story sucked.

Acting was stale.

Ending was soooo bad.

What a boring film. It was nothing but boring.

When it ended I said, "That's it? That was the film?"

Not a good thing when someone says that toward a film.

Apparently since the movie went nowhere, there will be a sequel. Thanks guys for wasting my time that got nothing accomplished!

Funny thing: When the 3rd film came out everyone said it sucked because Kate Beckinsale wasn't in it. Well she's in this one and it's clearly worse then the 3rd one!

Kate Beckinsale is the only reason to watch!

and if I can be honest for a sec...



It was the only reason I watched it!

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Simplistic TV: Longmire

GENERIC

Do you want to see a terrific cable television show that is a modern day western starring a cowboy hat wearing, no nonsense lawman who is based on a character from a best selling novel?  Yeah?  Then watch Justified on FX.  Do you want to see a cable television show that has all those same attributes, but only manages to come off as a cheaper alternative?  Yeah?  Really??  Then watch Longmire.  Longmire, a freshman show on A&E, just exudes that feeling you had when you were 10 years old and your parents bought you the GENERIC Apple Dapples instead of the name brand Apple Jacks.  And while I admit to having a personal bias of favoritism toward Justified, there is no question that Longmire, as a whole, is simply just plain.

The cast and their performances are pretty plain as well.  Katee Sackhoff, most known from Fox's 24 and SyFy's Battlestar Galactica, is the lone bright spot on the show.  Sackhoff seems to always bring to her characters something captivating and real.  However, she is only a costar here.  The titular role of Longmire is played by Robert Taylor.  You know, the guy from that thing with the other guy...no?  Okay, yeah, I don't know him from anything other than his role as Agent Jones in The Matrix.  And his personality is about the same here.  To be a star of a western your main character has to be a little fun.  He can be dry and badass but still wink at the camera a bit with his coolness.  Eastwood got this.  Timothy Olyphant gets this.  Taylor doesn't.

What makes a western feel like a western is not just that it takes place out west.  As I've said before, westerns are mythical.  They are fairy tales about rich characters stuck in extraordinary situations facing off with one another.  They possess style and fun and don't ever take themselves completely seriously.  That's why Inglourious Basterds feels like a western.  Why The Way Of The Gun feels like a western.  Serenity, No Country For Old Men, Justified...they all give off that air of western.  But Longmire lacks style, rich characters, and the friction of a great face off.  Its just a very dry police procedural based in a western town.  It tries to copy the atmosphere and the gimmick of Justified, but forgets it's most important quality.  The magic.  Kick your boots up, watch it...then tell me I'm wrong.

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Simplistic TV: The Wire, Season Five

The Wire, Season Five - Bravo

*Spoilers Ahead*

After watching four seasons of "The Wire" in about the span of three weeks not only was I heavily invested with what would happen to the Barksdale Crew, Jimmy McNulty, Bunk Moreland, the New Day Co-Op, and Omar Little, but I was getting mentally exhausted.  All the shows run a full hour (more on the season openers and finales) and the show-runners pack so much in each episode that I hit information overload at certain points.  However, regardless of how much is is crammed into each show, I couldn't get enough and needed closure, and I really wanted some good to come out of the whole shitty mess that is West Baltimore (I got some, but I mostly got kicked in the nuts).  This brings me to Season Five of "The Wire," the final season, and an excellent conclusion to a series that you could call "The Standard for all crime dramas."

Released in 2008, (season four finished up in 2006, so for those who were watching season-to-season, there was almost a 14 month waiting period between the end of four and the start of five) we shift to the magical land of journalism and the offices of the Baltimore Sun.  As in real life, the written word is on the ropes and newspapers are slowly becoming obsolete so writers are becoming more desperate and trying anything to cling onto their jobs, similar to the drug trade in Baltimore, which is shrinking as crews are falling and the Stanfield Crew has monopolized the market.  Desperation is a major theme for this fifth season as McNulty starts a new "crusade" to finally put an end to Marlo Stanfield's crew, newly-elected Mayor, Tommy Carcetti, wants a "serial killer" who is targeting the homeless caught, and the clock is ticking as job cuts at the Baltimore Sun are starting to affecting employee morale.  If people weren't desperate in Baltimore before, they certainly are now.

The one gripe I could find with this season are how the plot lines are tied up. You could tell that HBO was ready for the show to end (not because the show was bad, but when it comes to business, its all about ratings, and during the original run of the show the ratings were lacking), and the plot lines had to be cleaned up as best they could.  Season Five was also the shortest season (ten episodes).  However, I will say everything came to a satisfying end and watching the ending montage made me feel happy, mad, frustrated, hopeful, but most of all, in awe.

Watching "The Wire" made me realize that TV isn't dead.  To be honest with you, it took me watching this show to really get back into watching TV and wanting to see if I could find something that could really top "The Wire."  There are a few shows (funny enough, most of them are on HBO) that can really hang, but I will include "Justified" and "The Shield" in that grouping (funny enough, both on FX), but I think I'll be hard-pressed to find another show on TV that really gave me everything I wanted (and ironically, didn't want) from a TV show.  "The Wire"......bravo......

Fun Fact:  Dominic West, who plays Det. Jimmy McNulty, directed the 8th episode of Season Five, "Took."

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J. Edgar

J. Edgar: Solid

This movie is fine, and thats it.

I would say it's a weak Clint Eastwood film.

Leonardo DiCaprio is good, like usual.

His make up was good. Clyde Tolson's wasn't. Really got on my nervers every time I saw it.

I would like to see a story about someone's life that doesn't use the standard, "I'm writing a book so let's now go back and show you everything that I talk about".

If you have time to kill then okay watch this, if not I'm sure you can find something a bit better.

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Simplistic TV: The Wire, Season Four

The Wire, Season Four - Chilling

*Spoilers Ahead*

Through three seasons of "The Wire" we have gone from the streets, to the docks, and back to the streets so it was only natural that we visited somewhere that we would think would be safe and would give us a break from the chaos of West Baltimore.  Unfortunately, that isn't the case when we visit the School District of West Baltimore in Season Four of "The Wire."

So far we've seen junkies, gangsters, murderers, pimps, mobsters, crooked cops and politicians, and you can make the case that they're all scourges, blights on society, but it's all the more tragic when you see the neglect the school system faces and with the "robbing Peter to pay Paul" mindset you understand why West Baltimore is in such disrepair.

This season we meet more new characters and the re-invention of a few old ones.  The most prominent ones include Michael Lee, a street smart kid that catches the eye of the Stanfield Crew, Duquan Weems aka "Dukie", and Randy Wagstaff, two extremely tragic figures of how the school system fails and bureaucracy blocks enhancement for West Baltimore's youth, and we see the new career direction of former Detective Roland Pryzbylewski, now a math teacher for the West Baltimore School District.

As we have come to expect from "The Wire," we have a fair share of "offings" of well liked characters, and some interesting twists from others.  I would have to say that Season Four is the strongest season of "The Wire" so far as it keeps close to the streets but it also explores the failures of the local government, how criminals take advantage of the local youth, and why hope in a hopeless situation is so dangerous.

Fun Fact:  Felicia Pearson, who portrays Felicia "Snoop" Pearson, is an actual convicted felon from East Baltimore who was discovered by Michael Williams, who portrays Omar Little in "The Wire".

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Snow White And The Huntsman

YAWN

More like SLOW White And The Huntsman...am I right? (Cheap Rimshot)  Sorry.  I'm sorry.  God I really don't want to lay into this movie.  I really don't.  The concept, the idea, the attempt to try and make something different inside the cookie cutter constant cliched world of Hollywood should be applauded.  Its hard to find films that have balls anymore.  Films that strive to be unflinchingly different no matter what the studio execs say.  When done right, when left alone, those cojones carrying films shine like a beacon through the forest of monotony.  The reason different, interesting concept films aren't a plenty in Hollywood is because for every Matthew Vaughn's Kick-Ass, there is a Frank Miller's The Spirit.  For every Timur Bekmambetov's Wanted there is a Timur Bekmambetov's Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter.  Slow...I mean...Snow White And The Huntsman has cojones but just doesn't know what to do with them.

So what do we got on paper?  Lets take the tale of Snow White and make it a dark and edgy (Sigh...Thanks Nolan) action filled visual masterpiece circa The Lord Of The Rings.  Awesome!  I want to see that.  Lets make it PG-13. Ummm...kinda goes against your desire to make it edgy but...fine.  Lets cast Charlize Theron And Chris Hemsworth in it.  Terrific!  Lets only use them for a tenth of the runtime.  What?  That seems stupid.  You usually want to have your best actors in your movies MORE not less.  Unless you've got a really good actress to play Snow White.  Who do you got?  We got Kristen--Bell?  That could be cool.  Veronica Mars.  I like her.  No.  Kristen--Wiig?  She's a little old for the role.  But at least she's funny.  No.  Kristen Stewart.  What?  Kristen Stewart.  The Twilight chic?  Yep!  The lip biting Twilight chic?  Yep!  Pumped yet?

I knew all of this going in but still anticipated watching the edgy action filled movie that I was sold on.  And the problem is...the action takes FOREVER to come.  Oh its there, in spurts.  But man, if there weren't several 25 minutes segments where NOTHING HAPPENS.  A large majority of this film is scenes of Theron gazing into space or Stewart walking through the woods.  If you're going to promote your film to be this action slash adventure re-imagining, you have to give me some action SLASH adventure.  All that seems to have been accomplished by this re-imagining is making a fairy tale look as dreary as possible.  Its like someone poured black mud over the entire film.  The dreariness seems to bash you over the head to the point where you don't even recognize ANYTHING that is supposed to be action, adventure, or Snow White.  If that was the point, then the point is stupid.

I only pepped up from my head nodding drowsiness while watching this movie twice. First is when Hemsworth appears.  And that takes a good thirty minutes.  Second was when the dwarves arrive.  Hemsworth and the dwarves are the only source of levity, fun, or entertainment in this entire film.  And as I've mentioned before...THEY ARE HARDLY IN IT.  You have the great Ian McShane and Ray Winstone,  the hilarious Nick Frost, the always interesting Toby Jones and the legendary but sadly retired Bob Hoskins and you barely use them?  Instead, you force-feed us Stewart's STILL NOT CUTE blandness and wooden delivery for two hours.  Stewart's YAWN inducing acting might have been correctable if the director of the film wasn't so busy sleeping with her on the set.  Hmmm....Perhaps I've gone too far.

Snow White And The Huntsman does have some amazing effects.  The performances from the supporting cast are really good...probably due to the better actors being forced into supporting roles.  Theron does a good wicked queen, which could have been a great wicked queen if the "preoccupied" director asked her to reel it in a little bit.  But at the end of the day, its just boring.  An action film that makes you sleepy IS NOT A GOOD THING.  Snow White And The Huntsman is a swing and a miss that only gives unimaginative Hollywood execs ammunition against films that go against the grain.  And for that, I can not forgive it.  Take a handfull of NoDoze...watch it...then tell me I'm wrong.

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Simplistic Reviews Podcast Sneak Peek

Here is a sneak peek of some of the topics the guys will be tackling on the podcast.  We're sure by the time the podcast debuts, they'll learn not to tackle them....at the same time.

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