Coleman’s Labyrinth

My Writings. My Thoughts.

Update About What’s Going On

// June 22nd, 2009 // No Comments » // Ramblings

So recently my electronic life has gotten rather hectic. Things were starting to go smoothly everywhere, I was starting to build a nice online presence. Then one day about a month ago my computer decides to catch a rather nasty virus that basically shut down every virus program, firewall that I had. And in trying to fix and repair my computer the problem became even worse, I didn’t have the OS for my computer, just the recovery disc. I should’ve realized this when I purchased the laptop, but three years later it’s kind of too late. So I tried installing Ubuntu on it, which failed for some weird reason. Eventually I was able to restore my computer, but at the loss of my laptop for three weeks. That ultimately sucked.

Luckily I managed to save most of my important applications needed and media that I love. That was fine, one or two days were spent trying to figure out the problem with my stupid wi-fi, and eventually I got back into business with that. Unfortunately due to all of this I have not podcasted in over a month, which is sad because the train for that was finally leaving the station. I had assembled a great panel of people, we got to talk about film, and the show actually hit an hour long for the first time in over 55 crap episodes. Ever since the Watchmen review podcast with my friend Stephen from Horseshoes & Handgrenades things have gotten better. And the whole computer apocalypse has not helped one bit, but rest assured things are back in working order.

Or at least for now. This weekend I had nothing but work and travel to meet family, and on Sunday I had gotten off work and come home to find that my website had been blacklisted by Google for tags that were supposedly linked to malicious software on other sites….tags mind you, that showed up in Google’s listings along with these sites, so in words I wasn’t hosting any of this crap at all, but I was simply blacklisted for showing up in the same results - GOOGLE FAIL. I have sent in my request to have my site reconsidered, and are waiting the results.

Then I find out because of that, with my Twitter account being linked to my blog’s front page, I somehow got blacklisted onto the spam list on Twitter, rendering my account useless, even though I have been a member of Twitter since 2007, with over 5,000 updates (not bragging, just saying this should prove I’m not a spam bot or should show that I am not involved in malicious activity). Essentially my online reviewing presence has been skull fucked by Google blacklisting me. Rest assured I do not upload any malicious software to my server at all, or GoDaddy would not be very pleased with me.

I know I haven’t reviewed a movie in awhile, since Drag Me To Hell on Murmur but I recently just reviewed Party Down there so be sure to check that out, but rest assured I am getting back in business, especially now that my online class ends this week. So be sure to finally stay tuned for my review of Transformers with hopefully a podcast to be posted later this week. If you wish to be a part of the panel, let me know at me @ colemanranahan dot com (this phonetic spelling helps avoid spammers :] )

Terminator Salvation

// May 25th, 2009 // No Comments » // movies

Terminator Salvation is written by Michael Ferris (T-3 and Surrogates) and John D. Brancato (T-3). The film is directed by McG. This film has a huge cast, starring Christian Bale as John Connor, along with Sam Worthington as Marcus Wright, Moon Bloodgood, Helana Bonham Carter, Anton Yelchin as Kyle Reese, Michael Ironside, Bryce Dallas Howard as Kate Connor, and Common. By the way every time I say McG i feel weird. Terminator Salvation takes place after Judgement Day has happened, and John Connor is helping the resistance to stop humanity from disappearing forever.

I was finally looking forward to a Terminator movie where we would be able to be a part of the actual reisstance, the actual war that was Machine vs. Man. I remember seeing Terminator 3 and being just ok with it. The trailer for Salvation made it look incredibly gritty and full of action. Terminator Salvation definitely delivers on action, there is no doubt about that. I enjoyed the gritty look and feel to it.

The dialogue, I was not a huge fan of. Parts of it were cliche, there was even a random part where John Connor just grunts into a radio…I’m not sure if he had something stuck in his throat like dust, or if I simply missed what was going on. Certain parts of the movie also felt forced, like the writer’s were having trouble moving things along so they tossed something in to get everything moving. Some of the trademarks of Terminator, the “I’ll Be Back” seemed a little hokey in this film. It didn’t seem fan pleasing, or an homage, just tossed in there.

I fet like there should have been more set up for Sam Worthington’s character Marcus Wright. Many times his character just knew how to do something, without explanation, he would just fix something. Did his character previously live on a farm? Was he a mechanic? It’s established that before Judgement Day Marcus killed some people was executed on Death Row, and was supposed to donate his body to science. Dr. Serena Corgan from Cyberdyne Systems, played by Helan Bonham Carter, with terminal cancer working on advanced research is the one to convince him to do this. However he wakes up in 2018 to discover the world he knew was gone, and the machines have taken over.

Why the writers from T-3 were tapped for this movie I will probably never know. Especially considering that McG wanted to make a great Terminator film. He basically succeeded, but the failure is all in the writing. Which is a shame because the only reason Bale wanted in on the film is that is was character based, and that didn’t really happen in this film. Especially since it felt like they just threw away Kate Connor as a character. They showed Kyle Reese as starting to fill into a leaderhsip role, I liked that, so it should be interesting to see what they do with him next film.

There was maybe only one cinematography shot I had a problem with, which ws one of the drag around shots of Sam Worthingotn you could tell it was green screen.

We also get to see the origin of the T-800 101 model from the original Terminator which I thought was interesting and a lead in for more origin since there will probably be another Terminator movie. I guess you could say this is a minor spoiler, so don’t read if you haven’t seen it yet, but Arnold’s in this movie, as a face-planted CGI T-800. He doesn’t have any dialogue

Spoilers now

I thought the storyline using the frequency that shuts down Skynet bots to be reversed and track down the high command was a good concept, but sort of clumsily written. Michael Ironside was an exception though in playing a good role through General Ashdown. This sets up how Connor became the leader of the reisistance.

Marcus Wright manages to redem himself in the end when John Connor gets impaled by a Terminator, and donates his heart to him, but I guess I didn’t feel the redemption.

Overall I enjoyed Terminator Salvation, but I would’ve hired entirely different writers. That said, it looks gritty, and had a great feel to it, but the writing is probably the downfall of this movie.

Angels & Demons

// May 20th, 2009 // No Comments » // movies

Angels & Demons is written by David Koepp and Akiva Goldsman. The film is directed by Ron Howard. Angels & Demons is based off the Dan Brown novel of the same title. Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon is called to the Vatican after a murder, with the Vatican thinking that the Illuminati, a group dedicated to scientific truth is behind it. It is Langdon’s job to prevent a new series of murders, and to help find stolen Antimatter before it can detonate in Vatican City.

Angels & Demons carries mostly an unknown cast. Tom Hanks reprises his role as Robert Langdon, this time joined by Ewan McGregor playing Father Camerlengo, and a gorgeous Ayelet Zurer playing a physicist named Vittoria Vetra.

I will fall along the lines and say that I have not read any of the Dan Brown novels, even though I saw The Da Vinci Code already, which was ok. Essentially the same goes for this film as well. It’s simply just ok. I didn’t think it was terrible or think it was great in any way. The one thing I did like about the film is that it’s has an interesting concept behind it, basically giving the book all the credit.

I thought the acting was ok, Tom Hanks wasn’t really compelling. Ewan McGregor actually did a good job playing Father Camerlengo, it wasn’t fantastic but he had nice little nuances throughout the film. Ayelet was a close 2^nd, maybe it’s just because I’m a sucker for pretty girls with accents (who isn’t then again?) but both her and McGregor were both more compelling than Hanks combined.

The film really isn’t that all compelling, the action sequences are ok. The character decisions and reveals are probably the best part of the film, which doesn’t say much.

I’m sure religious people are up in arms over the films and the books, I wasn’t bothered by any of the conjecture and alternate story deviations from Christianity, then again I’m not religious so it wasn’t a big deal to begin with. To their credit it didn’t do them favors or bet against them. It’ll just be there, occupying space.

Overall, Angels & Demons just made me want to read the book more than anything, I think the concepts behind it are really interesting and intriguing, it’s just a simple see it once film and you’re done with it.

Netflix Review - Dawn of The Dead

// May 14th, 2009 // No Comments » // movies

Dawn of the Dead was Zach Snyder’s directorial debut and is based off George A. Romero’s original 1978 screenplay but also written by James Gunn who wrote Scooby-Doo. Michael Tolkin and Scott Frank were brought in for rewrites but were not given credit.

Dawn of the Dead is basically, a nurse named Ana played by Sarah Polley wakes up one morning to find her neighbors zombified daughter in their bedroom. The daughter bites her husband, effectively making him bleed out and reanimate into a zombie. She goes on the run, and eventually runs into some more survivors (Played by Ving Rhames, Jake Weber, Mekhi Phifer), finding out that this zombie infection has spread world wide.

They eventually take refuge in a shopping mall, where they meet three mall-security guards, one of them played by Kevin Zegers most notably remembered for the Air Bud series before they beat that to death. I would have laughed if a zombie dog came and killed him.

Along the way Andre (Mekhi Phifer) is traveling with his wife and eventually she is wounded by a zombie, while she is pregnant. Andre tries to keep her alive as long as possible until one of the mall’s inhabitants (Jayne Eastwood) shoots her, sending him over the edge, and they effectively kill each other. And now I present to you, ZOMBIE BABY!

I really had a lot of fun with this film. I’m really not into the whole zombie thing all the time, but so far this is my favorite zombie film of all time at the moment. A lot of people will usually say that this film is known for its first ten minutes because it manages to grab your eyes and rip them open quite frankly.

Dawn of the Dead has a great supporting cast, and the visuals are probably the best I’ve seen for a zombie movie in quite a long time. There sort of is a story there, with Ana finding a new romance with Michael (Jake Weber) and eventually they break out of the mall to the local marina where richy rich Steve (Ty Burrell) has a yacht and they can get to Lake Michigan to be safe.

The ending was a little weird for me, they get to the yacht, and the boat gets them into the water, they get to a small island, get off the boat but are immediately met by a new swarm of zombies, and the camera hits the ground revealing them to being attacked. And the film just ends there. Normally I would want a little closure to a film like this but I still liked it a lot. This would probably be one of the first zombie movies I recommend to anyone.

Episode 58 - Star Trek, Bones, Dollhouse

// May 12th, 2009 // No Comments » // podcast

Episode 58 - Star Trek, Bones, Dollhouse (right click - save as)

There will be a new feature podcast coming soon to the site, called An Actors View, this will be a feature podcast two great friends of mine as we discuss movies and television from a different perspective, such as motivation for a storyline, motivation for a character, the given circumstances, storyline, etc. etc. it won’t be just a normal review podcast, I’m excited about this, so I hope everyone will check it out when it debuts in a couple weeks!

[1:51 - Film news]

Keanu Reeves in Jekyll

Deadpool Spinoff

Ratner drops out of Conan movie

[Television - 6:40]

Bones

10:20 - Dollhouse

13:20 - Scrubs Series Finale

[Main Feature - Film]

22:57 - Scrubs Series Finale

Star Trek Review

// May 8th, 2009 // No Comments » // movies

Star Trek is directed by J.J. Abrams, and is written by Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman. I knew the film was going to be action packed already, because you have J.J. Abrams, the man who directed Mission Impossible 3, and Roberto Orci who wrote Transformers, Mission Impossible 3, and Fringe and Alias episodes. The film stars Chris Pine as James T. Kirk, Zachary Quinto as Spock, Simon Pegg as Scotty, and Eric Bana as Captain Nero an evil Romulan out for blood after his home world is destroyed.

To start off, I can say I went in with insanely high expectations, I’ll say it, the trailers got to me really bad. The third trailer that was put out for Star Trek in my opinion is a work of art. Something that makes the movie look so incredible. And I think that’s something that perhaps disappointed me a little. I highly enjoyed the movie. I think it’s the best Star Trek movie I’ve seen thus far, but I think I set myself up for too much excitement.

The movie is stunningly gorgeous. Nothing looks cheesy or badly CGI’d, everything is clear and crisp, kind of like MI3. The action scenes are incredibly well put together, and keep your eyes glued to the screen. The Romulan drill fight was probably my favorite fight scene. The beginning fight scene between the Romulan ship and the U.S.S. Kelvin was almost breath taking. I’ll be honest I didn’t want the movie to end. I would’ve been willing to sit there for another two hours to see the next adventure. The movie obviously wasn’t perfect by any means. I thought the training scenario was a little corny and a bit overplayed, it was kind of used to show Kirk’s pompous attitude, but there were plenty of scenes that established that already.

Sound design was something that played a huge role in this movie. After Abrams found out that the movie was not going to be released for another six months he said that they went back and worked over a lot of the sound. I can’t honestly imagine what the film would have been like if they hadn’t. This film makes you feel like you’re there. The phaser blasts when they’re fighting in the Romulan ship, the Starships firing torpedo’s back and forth at each other, hell, the little noises that the starship elevator made, or buttons on the main deck of the Enterprise sounded incredible.

The score was highly enjoyable for Star Trek, there were a couple of moments when they could’ve toned it down, like they were playing a couple of the scenes too powerful, but I still thought it was a good score. Michael Giacchino is someone who has been with Abrams for a long time from Lost to Fringe to Alias, so at least we have someone who has staying power.

The one thing I will say that I highly enjoyed about the film was the things that have made the series famous were paid lip service without leaving the audience scratching their heads, sure some stuff might have been left out, but when they would make references it was done in an easily explainable manner.

The acting for this came out a lot better than I thought it would have. Zachary Quinto as Spock did not disappoint, but the writer’s threw in something for me which was an interesting element I don’t remember seeing before (now don’t quote me). I did watch most of the original series from Netflix Instant Watch and don’t really remember a love element being played in for Spock, so for me I thought that was new and an exciting place to take the story. I thought Simon Pegg did a great job playing Scotty, the accent didn’t feel forced, but I could see him playing into it a little, but it didn’t bother me. I’m glad that they wrote in the lines that made him famous, but didn’t force it. The entire audience cheered when he said, “I’m giving her all she’s got Captain!” Eric Bana as the evil Romulan Captain Nero was simply awesome. He was a character who simply just acted on impulse, and it was fun to see him tear it up on screen. Zoe Saldana played Uhura with the attiude I remember from the series.

Bruce Greenwood as Captain Christopher Pike is the essence of a Federation Captain. He has the look and feel of a starship captain. Especially for the setup in the trailer, his voice is something that could lull me to sleep in a non-creepy way. Anton Yelchin as Chekov was a bit obnoxious at first, but over the course of the movie he settled in quite nicely. Karl Urban as Bones McCoy was a really interesting casting choice, someone I would not have thought of originally. He looked very much the part, a little overacting at times, but it wasn’t over the top. John Cho I think made for a fantastic Sulu, although I wished they would’ve explored his character a little more. I always thought the Sulu from the original series was always compelling and quite strange, in a comedic way.

Chris Pine was the one I was worried about most going into this film, I hadn’t seen him in any previous film’s and the trailer’s didn’t give me much to go on in terms of his acting ability. I had seen that on IMDB he did a movie previously with Lindsay Lohan, so that didn’t help his credibility with me. Well after having seen Star Trek all doubts about him have been erased. I thought he played it with a great punk style attitude for being so young, and I look forward to seeing him in the next installment of the franchise.

All of the character setup done by the writers was a nice job. I simply just can’t wait to see how far they can take it in the next installment. A friend of mine was disappointed a little they didn’t delve farther in for the characters, but did agree that it was a great setup for a movie.

The story setup probably could have left out the one scene with Kirk as a child driving the car off a cliff, I realize that it was simply a setup to show that Kirk was a bit cavalier and didn’t really care who said what. But I think that could have been handled in a completely different manner.

If you haven’t seen the movie yet, spoiler alert *stop reading*

The parallel universe storyline I thought made a great concept, and was easily explained to the audience. So the old Spock (Played by Nimoy) gets captured and is forced by Captain Nero to watch as he destroys his home planet Vulcan with a Romulan drill and some red matter (basically creates black holes), all the while the young Kirk is told by Old Spock not tell Young Spock that he exists, but in reality is simply just joking around. One side note, the red ball of doom is back!! For those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about there was a red ball in Alias *created by JJ Abrams* which basically exploded and flooded a building practically drowning Michael Vartan’s character. Maybe I’m the only one who thought of that similarity but anyway. I thought ending the film with Nero dying in the blackhole was a great way to end his storyline, because basically that’s how he extracted some of his revenge.

I’m glad they ended it with what normally came as the intro for the original series, the famous line, “Space, the final frontier. These are the voyages of the Starship Enteprise” with Leonard Nimoy as the voiceover, it’s a shame they couldn’t get Shatner to at least make a cameo that way, but I’m glad they they ended in that fashion.

Overall, even as someone who has seen the original series, I loved what was displayed across the screen. The story could have evolved moreover but I did not walk away disappointed by any means. The sound design was huge for me, you could tell how hard they worked on that to almost make you feel like you were there. Great setup for the characters, and I can’t wait to see how deep they go with the character’s relationships next time around. The film wasn’t perfect by any means, but highly enjoyable even thus. This is a film I highly recommend seeing, and so far my favorite movie of the year. BAM

State of Play - Review

// May 5th, 2009 // No Comments » // movies

State of Play is directed by Kevin MacDonald and is written by Tony Gilroy (The Bourne series, Michael Clayton) and Matthew Carnahan (Lions for Lambs, The Kingdom). State of Play is adapted from the BBC 6 part miniseries titled of the same name.

State of Play starts off with a young man and a pizza delivery boy being gunned down in the streets of Washington D.C. after the young boy had been fleeing from the assassin. The next day Congressman Steve Collin’s (Ben Affleck) young and attractive research assistant falls in front of a train, prompting media frenzy about his involvement with her. A reporter from The Globe Cal McAffrey (Russell Crowe) begins investigating the story with online/blog reporter Della Frye (Rachel McAdams) as they begin to discover there is much more to the story than once originally thought. Throughout the ordeal they also have to deal with their boss Cameron Lynne (Helen Mirren) about finishing the story and being done with it by press time.

State of Play is very impressive. The film brings along an all-star cast of characters as well as some veteran actors like Jeff Daniels as Senator George Fergus, a very stern politician attempting to help Collins, Michael Weston as one of Crowe’s investigative reporters, and Jason Bateman, an eccentric personality who reveals much about what is happening. The entire cast did a fantastic job, which is especially great for a political thriller. It also shows how great Russell Crowe’s character is, that even though he is old school, use’s an old computer, he gets the job done well, and right.

The score for State of Play is also very impressive. Not all too often is an electric guitar heard as background music, which provided for great transitions between scene changes and made for fantastic suspense. I was really impressed with the score, which is probably one of the best one’s I’ve heard in awhile.

State of Play has several different aspects to it, although it is a story about a politicians aide being killed, it also involves the aspects of print journalism versus the bloggers, and how the media controls situations, something that Lions for Lambs tried to do, but failed to capitalize on that like State of Play does. It also tackles the current topic of the privatization of Homeland Security, tossing in corporate conspiracies at the same time without being hokey and over the top, which made for a great concept in this movie.

That said, State of Play is a fantastic political thriller, people should seek it out while they can, or catch it immediately upon DVD release, it is a solid movie, with solid performances across the board. Don’t let it look like a generic political thriller to you, even though the title may seem like it. State of Play really is a great film.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine Review

// May 4th, 2009 // No Comments » // movies

X-Men Origins: Wolverine is directed by Gavin Hood (Rendition) and written by David Benioff (25^th Hour) and Skip Woods (Swordfish, Hitman). The story is in the title, it is of course the origin story of Logan a.k.a. Wolverine. Wolverine played by Hugh Jackman grows up with bone claws and the ability to heal, and grows up alongside Victor Creed played terrifically by Liev Schreiber who later becomes Sabretooth. They fight through all the major U.S. wars, even face the death sentence, and live.

I could not have cared less about this film except for two reasons. Liev Schreiber plays a great Sabretooth, and Ryan Reynolds plays a great Deadpool a.k.a. Wade Wilson. Everything else about this film suffers.

The opening credits are absolutely terrible, it presented itself almost as a television show that we’ve been following for awhile. The credits play out the wars that they’ve been involved in, and the court martial during Vietnam which Logan and Victor are sentenced to die, but instead live, and are eventually recruited by William Stryker played by Danny Huston.

Unfortunately the film plays to a lot of film cliché’s. There are several moments where explosions take place and Hugh Jackman walks away supposedly like a badass but I kind of giggled to myself when that happened. Also the cliché of yelling at the top of your lungs while holding your dead lover is getting old.

During the moment where Logan is fighting Gambit played by Friday Night Light’s Taylor Kitsch in an alleyway and something happened with the cameras, I could tell that they had switched to a different camera filter very quickly, and that somewhat bothered me.

The writing for the film is something to be desired, for something such as this, the origin of Wolverine, I would’ve expected better writing. I know that a lot of moments in the first three X-Men movies were somewhat based on humor, but this seemed to be a crutch for Origins.

So overall this film was just non-compelling, badly directed and badly edited, Liev Schreiber and Ryan Reynolds were great casting for the movie, especially Reynolds for Deadpool. I think this movie would have done better if Bryan Singer had directed it. Oh and be sure to stay for after the credits, spoiler alert,

I almost had a heart attack with what they were doing with Wade Wilson, I thought they were going to throw away his character, but after the credits finish, Deadpool picks his head back up, and I instantly became happy. Deadpool is one of my favorite characters, and even though they messed up his origin, leaving out the fact that Wade Wilson had cancer and that Weapon X gave him the power to heal himself and that he was deformed because of that was a little heartbreaking but I was glad to see his character was still alive at the end. Just be wary with this movie I guess.

The Soloist - Review

// April 27th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Uncategorized

The Soloist is directed by Joe Wright who has directed Atonement and Pride and Prejudice and written by Susannah Grant based on the Steve Lopez book. The Soloist is about an L.A. Times journalist named Steve Lopez played by Robert Downey Jr. who befriends a homeless ex-Julliard musician named Nathaniel Ayers played by Jaime Foxx. Throughout the film Lopez attempts to help Ayers back on his feet and to get him playing the cello and violin professionally again.

I have to start off by saying that the trailer for this movie, made this movie look like “Movie of the Year” quality. It really did. However, this film is nowhere near “Movie of the Year” quality. I’m really sad to say that. I actually said aloud that this movie was going to be exactly that. And dear god, I am eating my words as I type them. This movie was bad. I was quite disappointed in the way this film was presented.

The beginning of this film completely sets the tone for how the rest of the film will play out. The beginning is completely boring, non-compelling, and a complete snooze-fest. This was all the result of not having any score in the beginning of the movie. They didn’t even have any Stevie Wonder music in this movie at all, like they do in the trailer, which I’m now calling “Watchmen syndrome.” Even though I loved Watchmen.

Robert Downey Jr. comes out with an ok performance. It wasn’t anything special, but it wasn’t bad. Jaime Foxx played a pretty good paranoid schizophrenic I thought. Although the way it was presented didn’t come out that well.

The writing in this movie leaves something to be desired, there are a couple of great moments in this film that convey emotion and carry weight to them and then there are plenty of scenes where they just throw them away.

Normally I like Catherine Keener, but I did not like her in this film at all, she play’s Steve Lopez’s ex-wife and editor at the L.A. Times. I found her character annoying and completely useless in this film. I understand she is part of the story but she really wasn’t essential to the film.

The second half of the movie ends up being better than the first half, but honestly there was nothing redeeming about this movie. I simply blame on it the directing and the editing of this film because they do have a great cast list, and mostly good performances. The beginning is a prime example of the editing that was done. It’s a cut shot to newspapers and Downey Jr. riding a bike and the entire thing is boring.

That said I’m sure Dragonball Evolution (haven’t seen it yet) could’ve been more entertaining then The Soloist. See it if you want, but I’m quite sure a lot of people will come out disappointed.

Episode 57 - Knowing, Crank High Voltage

// April 26th, 2009 // No Comments » // movies, podcast

Hey I have two guest hosts with me this time! I am joined by my friend’s Mike and Ian as we discuss the writer who has been attached to the Wanted sequel, and we talk about Knowing and Crank High Voltage. Enjoy!