tinfoil, whiskey, and computers

Wow, where to begin? Basic Instinct 2 is, well, the not at all anticipated sequel to Basic Instinct. Basic Instinct was actually a good movie. Basic Instinct 2, however, was not. Let’s start with the acting. Sharon Stone was monotone throughout the whole movie. It’s not like it was seductive, it was just lame and annoying. David Morrissey (the doctor) was vapid. Most of his role consisted of staring at nothing. The detective David Thewis had a chance to not suck until his final scene. It was so incredibly horrible that it was almost satirical.

The writing? Holy bawls was it bad. The opening line was just stupid. The way the characters all interact was amateur at best. Seriously, who responds to situations the way these characters do? There are no normal decisions made throughout the entire film. Like, if you were being framed for murder, wouldn’t you turn over the evidence that would exonerate you? Derp. Especially if you were a smart person (like a doctor). There were numerous eye-rolling moments where the whole audience (me and a bunch of old people) just laughed and rolled our eyes at how bad the writing and acting was.

The references to the title were hysterically bad. As the doctor gives a speech he slyly says “risk addiction.” I was fully expecting a camera mug with a raised eyebrow. Later Stone says “basic instincts” and I was expecting that same camera mug, the type you see in a Mel Brooks comedy like Spaceballs.

The ending, how painful can things get? Just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse (it was ending after all) it gets much, much worse. There is a rehash of everything that happened. Perhaps the writers expected we wouldn’t really pay attention to this crappy movie? Everything is too neat and convenient…and stupid. What makes a twist in plot interesting is that you look at it and think, “yeah, that could have happened.” This is just a twist for the sake of twisting something. It doesn’t make sense, it’s not believeable, and, like I said, it’s just stupid.

Don’t waste your time in the theater or on DVD. It’s realy not worth your time. The best scenes (the boobs) will be on the Internets soon enough.

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The last part arrived today, the 1GB USB stick.  It’s actually quite small and nice looking.  Hooked it up to my Mac Mini and it looks good to go.  Tomorrow or this weekend I will get some lexan and start mounting stuff.  Shouldn’t take too long I don’t think.  I might need to find that fancy stuff used to bond lexan pieces together.  I don’t think I’ll have it all together this weekend since I will be busy.  End of next weekend is realistic though.

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This isn’t your typical coming of age movie. Foxfire teams together five teenage girls who had nothing in common until the day they stood up to an abusive teacher. The movie stars a young Angelina Jolie as Legs, a drifter who brings the group together.

Some people may find some of the themes cliche, but it’s a teen coming of age movie, it’s bound to be a bit cliche. I think a strong point is that the characters are likeable, realistic, and so we can relate to them. They aren’t “real” but they represent people and feelings we all know.

I thought all the performances by the girls were pretty great. Jolie does an excellent job for being still so new to film. I felt myself pissed off when the girls were pissed off. I could understand their frustration with situations.

I have a few pet favorite coming of age movies that I have to judge others against. They set a high bar. This movie is certainly very good though not the best. That shouldn’t keep you from seeing it though. It’s better than the Typical Hollywood Turd©.

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When you work on call overnight you get to watch a lot of movies. Not much is on at 3am, hence, a review of Alien Nation. It’s a very typical buddy cop movie. James Caan is a somewhat loose canon cop who gets a rookie, by the book partner Mandy Patinkin…who is an alien, not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Aliens who are smarter and stronger have landed on Earth and assimilated into society. The parallels to immigrants are obvious. The story is all very cliche, buddy cops, bad guy you don’t think is a bad guy, etc, etc. It could be any cop movie except for the alien part of things.

I will say they took a very, very plain script and made it into an enjoyable film. I think Mandy Patinkin does an excellent job. Chemistry of the main characters is decent. It’s certainly no Oscar winner (though I think that’s a badge of dishonor anymore) but it’s an enjoyable, Saturday afternoon sci-fi flick.

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Get Bruce is an autobiographical documentary about comedy writer Bruce Vilanch. I used the think the guy was just annoying, but he’s actually pretty damn funny. His specialty is topical humor, used often for hosts and guests at banquets and awards shows.

It’s a short documentary, which is probably for the best. It’s very straightforward, just interviews with Bruce’s friends and family. It’s certainly nothing too creative or spectacular. It was interesting to learn a little more about the guy, he really is funny yet, and I know this will sound weird, surprisingly normal.

There isn’t a lot to say. It’s not a subject that will interest a lot of people. The documentary itself is fairly plain jane. It has its moments and mostly kept my interest for its short length. Very average.

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Man, waaaay too many drugs were done in the 1980s. Videodrome is an acid trip about a dude who hallucinates because the TV made him do it. Really, that’s basically what this is. James Woods plays a man whose brain gets a permanent reality shift after watching a late night TV broadcast called Videodrome. Then the weird crap happens.

He starts hallucinating and seeing his altered reality. Except, in at least one scene I can think of, it seems others around him see the same weird thing happening. Maybe he just imagined others saw it, I dunno.

The pace of the movie was too slow for me for this genre. It didn’t fit the story right. I was actually quite bored watching it. The acting was nothing to write home about. The directing quality was in line with other crap from the 80s. The story was just stupid (I kept thinking of Cecil B. Demented, which is nothing for a movie to be proud of). It was the constant, stupid chant that was repeated that reminded me of a similar constant, stupid chant in Cecil B. Demented.

As you can probably tell, I didn’t really enjoy the movie. Special effects were good for 1983, that’s about all I can say. Other than that, snorting cocaine seems to be the inspiration. I guess maybe there was an attempt at social commentary about media and whatnot, but I don’t care. The movie was too lame for me to examine those aspects.

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There are some F’d up people in the world. Stevie is an interesting profile of a troubled man revisited by the director who was his Advocate Big Brother 20 years earlier. Dude is messed up, though it becomes apparent that he had a shitty life as a child.

The director takes this on as a very interesting concept. First, to be a big brother to such a troubled kid is impressive and admirable. Now, to follow up decades later shows the kid made an impact and the director truly wishes the best for him. Stevie is pretty much every Jerry Springer stereotype rolled into one.

I just sat in awe watching how messed up this guy is. Maybe it was schadenfreude but I found myself really into the movie.

As a documentary I have seen better, I have seen worse. As a topic it’s fascinating. The director doesn’t stick simply to Stevie, but brings in his family, sister, mother, aunt, girlfriend, friends, neighbors. That’s what raises the bar.

If you like documentaries you will love this film. It’s an interesting look at how the system failed this kid and how he refuses to fix what I think he truly knows is wrong.

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I went to the mailbox today and to my surprise I had almost all the guts for my Mac n’ Cheese NAS project. I got the NSLU2 and the USB hub. Now all I need is the USB stick. There is some computer guts pr0n after the jump. I gutted everything and did a test fit. There is plenty of room but I might need some fancy cabling to optimize it.

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