Looks like tonight’s episode of LOST may be about Sawyer. The plot synopsis is below and I’ll be back tomorrow with easter eggs, theories and whatever else I can find.
Recon
The Locke Monster sends Sawyer on a mission.
On 03.16.10, In TV, By AC Slater
On 03.16.10, In Movies, By AC Slater
Here are the DVD and Blu-Ray releases for Tuesday March 16th, 2010. Notable releases this week are Fourth Kind, which I heard was terrible, Ninja Assassin, which I also heard was pretty bad, The Princess and the Frog, which I haven’t heard anything about and finally South Park Season 13 (since the new season starts tomorrow). The only one I’ll get picking up today is South Park, but what about you guys?
DVD Releases
- Armchair Thriller: Set 2
- Armored
- Astro Boy
- Bandslam
- Billy: The Early Years Of Billy Graham
- Brief Interviews with Hideous Men
- Broken Embraces
- Christianity: First Two Thousand Years
- Clash of the Gods: The Complete Season 1 DVD SET
- The Constance Talmadge Double Feature: Her Night of Romance / Her Sister From Paris
- Cool School
(more…)
On 03.15.10, In Movies, By AC Slater
It’s no secret that one of my favorite movies in the past 10 years is Neil Marshall’s “The Descent”. It is by far the best horror movie to come out in the last decade (along with 28 Days Later) and ranks up there with one of the best horror movies ever. The sense of fear and tension in the cave environment, not to mention claustrophobia, are enough to make your skin crawl, but then Marshall throws in some terrifying creatures and the movie really takes shape. I’m not even claustrophobic, but the original movie makes me nervous every time I watch it. I don’t think there’s any way you could get me to crawl through some of the tight spots that the characters wiggle through. So naturally when I heard they were making a sequel I was both excited and annoyed.
There may be some spoilers regarding the 1st movie after this point, so if you have not seen “The Descent” I suggest not reading further.
Sequels are generally looked at as lower budget knock offs that rarely ever live up to the hype generated by their predecessors. I was also a bit confused as to how they were going to pull off a sequel considering the “real” ending of the original one. And as I expected they used the U.S. releases ending instead of the original U.K. ending. I kind of knew that they would go this route which was fine, but I really like the original ending and it seemed to complete the story much better where as the U.S. ending was clearly made that way so they could exploit the movie and create a sequel, which is also ok by me. I was also a little bit leary with the fact that Neil Marshall was not going to be directing this one, but the fact that some of the original cast was back made me feel a little better.
Part 2 picks up right where the U.S. version ended, Sarah has made it out of the cave leaving Juno with a pick axe in her leg to try to survive amongst the creatures of the underground. Upon escaping the clutches of hell, Sarah makes her way to a road and flags down a passing car. Meanwhile the police have launched a search and rescue team to the cave that the girls filed with the Parks Department (or whoever manages that stuff), which is obviously not the cave that the girls ended up in. The sheriff gets a call informing him that Sarah has been found alive and they secretly move the rescue mission to the other cave system.
That’s the basic plot of the movie and if you’ve seen the original you kind of know how things go once they get into the cave. It’s essentially a very similar movie, but without Marshall at the helm and without an original story, the movie becomes fairly predictable. There are still some moments of tension with regards to claustrophobia and the darkness of the caves, but the creature moments are way too cliche. There were also some random editing choices which didn’t seem to fit to me in regard to Sarah trying to remember what happened to her and her friends in the cave before (when she’s rescued she can’t remember anything).
One thing I did not like about “Part 2″ is the choice of lighting used by the director/crew. In the original Marshall tried to keep the atmosphere as real as he could using only light sources that would be present in the caves, which is basically helmet lights and flashlights. There were a few glow sticks and flares, but for the most part everything was lit exactly how you would see it. Obviously there had to be a little bit of outside light to keep the movie from being completely dark, but it was minimal. In “Part 2″, however, it seemed like there was a lot of light in the caves that shouldn’t have been there. It definitely helped display a scene better, but it also took away from the tension that the first one built up so well. Even the tight cave scenes didn’t seem as real and tight as the original. I know that most of the cave system was built on a sound stage for both movies, but the caves in Part 2 just didn’t really seem as gritty and scary as the original caves. I also thought that the introduction of the creatures was too soon, but I guess that’s more of what this one was about since we already know there are creatures down there now so there’s no sense in making us wait.
So while I did enjoy “The Descent: Part 2″ it wasn’t as good as the original, which is to be expected. If you’re a fan of the original I would say that it’s pretty safe to check out the sequel. There’s a few twists and turns, some of which are pretty obvious, but I think you’ll enjoy it.
On 03.15.10, In Video Games, By AC Slater
Word on the street is that the Stimulus Pack for Modern Warfare 2 is going to set you back $15! Yup, that’s 25% of the cost of the retail game for 5 new multiplayer maps. So, is it worth it to you? In the past the Call of Duty games have released, on average, 4 maps for the price of $10…. and that was 4 NEW maps. The Stimulus Pack is giving us only 3 new maps and 2 maps from Call of Duty 4. So unless there’s something jammed into this “expansion pack” that Infinity Ward and Microsoft haven’t told us yet, $15 seems a bit steep. But being the sucker for maps that I am, I will be the first in line to purchase these new maps.
And those new maps are as follows: Bailout, Storm and Salvage, along with Crash and Overgrown from CoD4. This information comes from an early listing in the Xbox Marketplace that describes the details of the Stimulus Pack. So what do you guys think of the price vs. what we’re getting? Are you going to be buying this?
Loading ...On 03.12.10, In TV, By AC Slater
And we’re back! Sorry for missing out on last week’s Lady Gaga challenge, but we were relaxing by the pool in Mexico and I wasn’t about to spend my vacation watching ‘Dance Crew’ and writing about it, sorry. But lets jump right into this week’s disco performances a little differently than the past… I didn’t have time to post last night like I normally do so the order of the performances may be off a little bit and they may be a little shorter than usual, but you’ll get the gist of it.
Blueprint Cru got immunity last week so they were up first and I thought they did pretty well. They had to incorporate the “funky guitar” into their performance and did about as much with it as one could expect considering it’s kind of a lame move. Overall a solid, well rounded performance, which is good because I was worried these guys were starting to slip a bit after the first couple weeks. (They were my favorite coming out of the regionals).
Saltare had to incorporate the hustle into their performance and maybe it was just me, but I completely missed it. I like that they tried to incorporate some actual dancing into the routine, but again, I can’t get over the fact that every performance turns into a jump rope demo… why are these guys still around? Sure the jump rope tricks were hard and it was kind of cool (and also kind of hokey) that the ropes were on fire for the end, but this is still a dance show and I don’t feel that they are actually dancers…
Poreotix is up next and I believe they had to incorporate the robot (?) into their performance. I only question that because it’s pretty much what they do every week and I can’t remember their move exactly. I though the performance was ok, I’ve liked other ones in the past much better, they just seemed a little out of a sync this time which is odd for them, I did like the sexy robot as J.C. called it, and the wave thing they did across the stage was cool. My girlfriend still thinks they are terrible and doesn’t like the style of dance, but to each her own I guess…
Hype 5-0 had probably the worst move to incorporate into their performance, the electric slide… ugh. Again, like Saltare, I didn’t really catch the electric slide part of the routine, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t there, I could have just been distracted by some other move. I think it was a well rounded performance, a little slow at times, but I think these guys have potential and hopefully will blow us away in the coming weeks.
Heavy Impact had to incorporate the strut into their performance which I wasn’t worried about, it was the lift that I was worried about. I’ll be honest, without the performance in front of me I can’t remember much about it. Since we watched both the Lady Gaga and the Disco shows last night, I seem to be confusing them in my head. So with that being said, I guess the performance wasn’t that memorable to me, but then again I haven’t really been a huge fan of these guys all season.
Static Noyze was up next and they have been one of my favorite groups so far this season. I can’t remember what move they had to incorporate, but I do remember that one of their members could not compete due to a back injury, which probably threw off the whole vibe of the group. I thought they did pretty well, there were a few sloppy moments and a few hiccups, but overall a decent performance.
Jungle Boogie was the last group of the night and they had to incorporate the bump (?) into the routine. I thought overall these guys and Blueprint Cru had the best performances of the night. This performance had tons of energy, they all seemed to be pretty in sync and smooth. The lift was cool since the girl lifted one of the guys which is the opposite of what we normally see, so that was clever (she’s also pretty tiny too). So between the 3 groups in the bottom, Heavy Impact, Static Noyze and Jungle Boogie, I had no doubt that Jungle Boogie was going to be the ones saved this week… based on this week alone though.
So there you have it, Heavy Impact and Static Noyze are headed home, which is sure to upset a lot of people. I personally would have rather seen Static Noyze hang around for a bit longer, but sometimes it doesn’t work out that way.
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