I'm back on the airwaves after the holiday break, miss me much? I knew you did. This week was a slightly shorter show, but no less spectacular. Here's what was played:
Sette Note In Nero - Fabio Frizzi - (1977)
12 Monkeys - Paul Buckmaster - (1995)
The Edge - Jerry Goldsmith - (1997 )
Akira - Shoji Yamashiro - (1988)
American Gladiators - Bill Conti - (1989)
Sorcerer - Tangerine Dream - (1977)
Breakin' - Various Artists - (1984)
In other news, I'm going to give you my review of AVP:R per request of Fiji Mermaid over at Sideshow Cinema.
What do you get when you take the Academy Award nominated 1987 film Predator and mash it together with the Academy Award winning 1980 film Alien? Well, you get this kind of strange high dollar mutant baby that has a quickly written script that also happens to be the potential wet dream of millions of dice rolling nerds, and/or super sexy genius film blog writers. Well, what if that wet dream just left you kind of chaffed and unsatisfied? Much like any wet dream, you're willing to give it another chance. Thankfully in the case of AVP: Requiem someone slapped the project out of Paul W. S. Anderson's incompetent hands and handed it over to the Strause brothers to play with. This fact didn't calm my nerves however, as the Strause brothers, while very well known for their visual effects on several good (and several completely awful) projects, they haven't really made any director seats that warm with their collective kiesters. Let's talk more about the movie though, shall we?
AVPR actually surprised me. I enjoyed this movie. Yes, you heard correct. I enjoyed this movie. It wasn't exactly perfect, as few movies are, nor was it totally what I wanted to see from a AVP movie. It also ended with a slightly ridiculous set up for a third installment with a pleather clad lady straight out of a halloween catalog ad for a crappy matrix knockoff costume. Let's start with criticisms so when I tell you what I liked, I won't end on a rotten note.
My major beef with this movie is that it's supposed to be ALIEN VERSUS PREDATOR. Not Aliens AND Predator Versus Humans. I don't think I saw any AAPVH posters around the theater. Why must directors spend so much time developing human characters that are blatant copies of Arnold Schwarzenegger / Danny Glover and Sigourney Weaver's characters from the previous Predator and Alien films? That's not what the audience wants to see. Humans are no more than fodder in this movie and should be treated as such. The Predator is an alien that is intelligent and has culture that should be explored...why not develop him as a character, instead of a simple killing machine? We did get a tiny glimpse of the predator home world, which was one of my favorite parts of the movie...and it lasted all of 2 measly minutes. We saw more sophistication of the Predator race (aka the Yautja) in the first two Predator films individually than in both of the AVP movies combined. To not write a thesis on the subject, I digress...
Positives about the movie? Action was spot on. The Predator was a bad ass, like he should be. He had classic weapons mixed with new, and actually acted like a hunter on a mission. The aliens were also well done, the effects were fantastic. Makeup was used where it was needed, CGI was used sparingly. Remember, the original films were made with ZERO CGI and they still hold up. I also enjoyed how the film was not afraid to show how cold and brood-like the Aliens are, which brought out their natural terrifying concept. Watching that kid get killed in the first few scene really slapped the audience and showed them that these Aliens mean business. Plus it made me laugh out loud, cause that kid had it coming. Perhaps one of the best parts of the film was the score by Brian Tyler which felt like a perfect mix of the original Alan Sylvestri Predator score mixed with the Jerry Goldsmith/James Horner Alien/Aliens score.
All in all, I got what I wanted out of this movie. Great action, great visuals, and a crazy mash-up up of two legendary sci-fi characters. You don't go into a movie like this expecting it to be a masterpiece, and when you realize this fact, you come out of it with a smile on your face and a list of ways "you'd do it better if you had a billion dollars"
1 comment:
Thanks, for that review! I meant to drop you a comment about this earlier. I have to catch up on the podcasts, can't wait to hear them all.
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