Raging Bull

Ties That Blind

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Raging Bull director Martin Scorsese probably had the Eye of the Tiger secretly (?) going on right after the release of the first Rocky movie. (The zoo is closed for now until further notice.) With this robust delivery, Scorsese senses fruity opportunity with a masterful scent picker and capitalizes on it via solid skills, offering a Larger Than Life movie collage about professional boxer Jake LaMotta. The Real Deal Raging Bull who maintains the reputation of having the best chin the boxing ring ever saw to date, regardless the fact that he retired from the squared circle in 1954.

Though - logically - plenty of time went by since then, the period in question could not produce a fighter with such immense tenaciousness and punishment resistance as The Raging Bull possessed and sported in the ring. His autobiography hit stores in 1970, while Rocky hits movie theaters in 1976. A funny thing indeed, that makes you wonder. Did Sylvester Stallone read the LaMotta book and invented Rocky to start off his career? I tend to think that he did, though I did not found information on this via first try. Yet, as of today, I am not obsessed enough to feel that my theory would need further solidification. Face it: my hypothesis makes semi-perfect - bonus oxymoron - sense, and probably catches Sly red handed. A shame that it took 31 years, even bigger shame/delight though that the Rocky movies remain pure, timeless classics of lightweight entertainment, regardless. As for this suggested inspirational context goes though, please contribute, in case you know something Sly does or told about this in interviews OR at highly confidential meetings between secret societies.

Let us scrutinize where this suggestion led to in the late '70s, early '80s. Suspicion: Sly reads the LaMotta book somewhere between its release date and 1976, AND recognizes what a superb buildup it would weigh in as if presented on the Big Screen. As Stallone said, he never would have forgiven for himself if he would let anyone else play the lead instead of him. A staggering success, Rocky claims about 1 million bucks to reach final form and produces 117 million at the offices. Now, can you blame Martin Scorsese for giving you the

Original Rocky

with Robert DeNiro in the lead in 1980? Hell, you can not. But the phrase "Original Rocky" better weigh in as an exceptionally fruity keyword, I am telling you THAT, Sly!

Raging Bull is heavily based on LaMotta's autobiography, a work I never read personally, though I suppose it is safe to say that Scorsese's cinematic interpretation is a faithful one - he could hardly want to enrage the Bull, after all. The film is black and white, a presentational choice which gives a strong oldshcool appeal to the output, thus the resultant image flow is unleashed as an account of the backstage - more precisely, "beyond the ring" - life of LaMotta. The dude was a highly traditional individual in his prime days, the period which of course was characterized by his boxing career and the corresponding, rigorous training regime. Raging Bull is a special mixture that delivers slight, yet evident MOB appeals, now-hilarious fights and a focal family drama, as LaMotta's Italian origins claims both the very integral adherence and emotional reliance on the family unit, let alone the famous Italian temper which the Bull possesses an immense amount of.

I tend to think that it is OK to regard the piece as a strong effort in each of these aspects, especially since the precisely presented persona of the protagonist is solidified even further by totally intact supportive performances. These additions come to you through LaMotta's wife and his brother. Let me tell you that Cathy Moriarty does not just render a woman of the era, Cathy Moriarty renders THE woman of the era. Though she was 20 during the shooting, the film informs you of an age of 15 by the time a married LaMotta sets his eyes on her, later deciding to unite with her instead and establish a family together with strange little space-time occurrences called children included in it.

Joe Pesci is in his prime in this output, he gives you a quite believable, fervent Italian minor stallion, and let me tell you that a minor Italian stallion will NEVER realize that he IS one, so actually he puts up a highly reliable, integral display of a mildly frustrated, yet, nevertheless strong and honest personality. Notice the picture below to face and digest some major convince power.



The Pants At The Armpit Style! Classic.

LaMotta had his bitter rivalries in the boxing ring, the most memorable of those though is evidently against the long period of mutual competition between him and Sugar Ray Robinson. Those were the days when professional boxing bouts were scheduled for 15 rounds, and it is certainly not a big surprise that the film will reach a certain peek moment to precisely account their Final and Concluding Face-Off in the squared circle. By precision I mean the little subtleties, like Scorsese implements the exact same advertisement the audience could see on the TV screen when watched the broadcast - a focal reason of this latter condition is simple: segments of the actual bout are implemented in the film's fabric. If you are curious of this classic event, you can check the entire match out at YouTube by following THIS particular link.

Naturally, the cinematic fights are rendered with DeNiro in it. A little, yet necessary leap-forward we committed, thus now is the time to step back. As outlined, Raging Bull is a family-, career-, and personality drama, one that weighs in intact in all these regards. The delicate setups you will see do concern well developed and masterfully presented dialogs that have a sharp focus on LaMotta's increasing degrees of paranoia as time progresses. The film gives totally intact, authentic, easily approachable personality dramas between the three major protagonists, meaning DeNiro, Cathy Moriarty and Pesci, who is both brother and manager of the focal character. These charismatic personalities do render and account the era they live in with exceptional convince power. A New Yorker Italian, or an Italian New Yorker, LaMotta tolerates no spots on his honor as a respectable Italian, neither on his record as a professional boxer. Solo definer of the Testosterone Taurus, DeNiro gives you this character in a flawless, flamboyant fashion. Yet, not everyone handles, dare I say, tolerate success soberly.



LaMotta was tolerating it rather well though, as long as things were going HIS way. Various, career related frustrations though turn him towards the worst direction a mind can conceive: he starts to behave like a man with some quality borderline personality disorder, accusing Vicky that she surely flirts around with guys while he is away in the ring. She surely MUST have some secrets. Cathy Moriarty is a wonderful choice for this role, I absolutely dig the way she talks, her calm voice and stuff related, let alone the corresponding, similarly sober personality that radiates inner beauty and registers as proper dignity. Not to mention the outer beauty which is not an accomplishment to spot instantly. Missing on it would be, though. No wonder LaMotta recognized these traits AND had the assumption - quite correctly, as we can see - that other, though highly hideous males do recognize these powerful feminine qualities, as well.

The moment where LaMotta is blatantly wrong though is that he can not "properly digest" and accept the fact that Vicky LOVES him - from a certain point on, he emotionally abuses and hurts the woman all the time. You know the usual male drill: "WHERE were you? With WHOM? WHY did you go there? Did ANYONE see you with THEM? You KNOW they will TALK!"

These unfortunate behavioral tendencies exhibited by the era's LaMotta even give you the impression that he might even pose as a danger to others or himself virtually all the time. Expect fog sleeping, maybe - just maybe. From a point on you are invited to form your impression that he is not just "soberly jealous" of his beautiful wife, he instead seems to produce delusional thinking that forces him to seek proofs of sins committed: if unsuccessful, then he is sure that it's just the result of a well developed and accomplished cover-up effort. Strong and famous, there are sections in LaMotta's true self that are simply not worth opposing against, not for him, neither for the opposer's sake. At the boxing bouts, LaMotta just releases Carl Jung's Animal, that is all. According to Jung, the Animal is the part that you prefer to hide from everyone, but still, IS part of you. LaMotta's animal is not just revealed, in fact, it dominates the personality. This is the part where women, man, society and pretty much all else beyond that do hand the piece of paper with "ERROR!" written on it. After he have seen Scorsese's work, the real LaMotta asked the real Vicky LaMotta if he was really as a horrid person as the film depicts him, Vicky told him this:
"- You were worse."



As a primal source of the drama that is about to unfold, LaMotta's jealousness is superbly presented by DeNiro and reacted upon with initial calm helplessness by his wife - as for the question concerning how and where these emotional assaults will unravel to - that remains to be seen when you decide to check out this classic, which is, by the way, the mere reason I give you this here review. The boxer does not satisfy with the persistent accusations towards his wife, though. A focal turning point in the buildup is signified by LaMotta's decently paranoid invention that surely his wife must have an intimate, secretive relationship with his brother. Sounds crazy enough yet? And, mind you that all these elements are based on real life events that have happened for real. LaMotta, you surely have the Balls of a Raging Bull, too bad sometimes you decided to borrow it's mind after it undergone immense sedation, as well.

Either way, it is absolutely safe to say that Scorsese's output scores big time in the drama department, these masterful, timeless performances do give you a precise rendition of an era that could hardly relate to the implausible- and, to be honest, sometimes absolutely misplaced passion LaMotta walked, fought and lived with by those days. No era could soberly relate to that. No human could.



As previously hinted, fight scenes, I think, are highly hilarious in Raging Bull. Come on. Get real here. Any head eating in the punches that do contact with the power implied here would explode like a water melon. Yes, you guessed that right: an exploded head even has a truly big chance to cause a consecutive knockout of its previous proprietor. I think that the times that went by since the release of the output are scarce excuses for this fighting method. To be honest, I laughed my personal sitorgan off and I am ready to laugh off someone else's, too, at the latest Rocky installment, Rocky Balboa. Oh God, these directors can be lunatic overkillers sometimes.

If you throw punches with 24234324234 kiloton of power All The Time, then you NEVER throw a punch with 24234324234 power. I think it is similar to drawing in this regard. If every single bit is detailed on a drawing - then nothing is detailed on it. I guarantee you that you will fail to feel excitement during the fight scenes Raging Bull delivers, I even dare say that they progress ineptly, silly, weightlessly. Truly. What you get is this: some dude starts to hit the other in the face by sheer, raw power. Connects on 14-15 consecutive occasions. Did I suggest to get real? In that particular reality, a boxer's face would turn to an unrecognizable, abused meat pie after the sixth of such impacts. The blood effects Scorsese relied on are even more staggering. Staggeringly weak and laughable, that is. Some chocolate syrup was used, by the way. Mind you that while I tend to remain devoted to these shortcomings I still suspect and even described, the sheer image quality of the fights do remain flawless and blatantly beautiful, regardless of the brutal nature of the subject matter. Indeed, the fight scenes in Raging Bull are so brutal that you have little if any chance to relate to them seriously. Yet, the work processes and ideas to create them are very maturely planned and precisely executed. A strange, rare correlation.

The huge amount of work to create the fight scenes does rely on a whole series of subtleties and interesting decisions: animal groans and breathings, guns were used to generate sound effects, for example. Scorsese even relied on quite cunning symbolism when he chose the proportions of the rings. Sequences of amazing precision and devotion, yet, the substance they describe is haunted by - in my opinion - both effect crave and a stable misunderstanding of human stamina. I realize I might sound like a sitorgan here, some would even say that I do piss on an altar. This is not my intention, absolutely not. Some part of me says that "serious" fight sequences would benefit the movie even further, yet the buildup of Raging Bull is way beyond the need and categories of improvement.

Yet, I must confess: if I am free to regard the fight sequences as mere supportive elements to reflect on and account LaMotta's only place to release and satisfy his True Self: THEN the solution Scorsese relied on is: more acceptable. I dare say this phrase though, because Scorsese did not seem to make an evident decision. To me: Raging Bull's fights are not serious enough, and they are not symbolic enough, either. They are just ineptly brutal, and, thus, brutally inept, in the long run. Some interesting condition yet: by the time Scorsese shot Raging Bull, he had massive drug problems, and was pretty convinced that this will be his last movie, then he will probably check out and move to another plane of existence. So he gave the green light on anything that was brutal, and main agenda was to remain in the ring all the time.

Let us forget about the fight sequences though, as, apart from this slight flaw I found in the film, Raging Bull is evident, timeless classic nevertheless that cites invaluable advices and inherent wisdom about how success can twist one into something that might be way more sorrowful than a certain period without success. To me, Raging Bull tells that though success is always ready to be invoked if asked subtly and without doubts, being ready for it is much more important than success itself. And here is why: YOU have success only if it is really YOU who has it.



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Street Kings

Aggression Claimed Its Culture

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James Ellroy's story, Street Kings is a work of sober originality, yet it shares certain similarities with other efforts that do tell tales about a world without heroes. The most notable among these parallels are the mere reasons that do deny, even nullify the legitimity of the "common hero".

On the image Street Kings or Yet Another Similar, Though Not As Good of a Movie as This One Is delivers, there are no proper challenges, no proper prizes and no proper admirers for a hero, thereby this senselessly, hopelessly furious, rampantly aggressive world easily incapacitates the hero archetype by taking away or corrupting the elements the hero must relate to.

It is not the danger that defines the hero. It is the need that defines one. Street Kings gives you a supersolid Los Angeles cop thrill in which a hero is not the benevolent defender and companion of the community - instead, he is an obstacle, as he has rigorous devotions to elementary values and rules, and even has the charisma and skills to defend those - yet now he operates in a world which ended up being furiously governed by an infinite number of rules. A system in which the Bigger Caliber, the Better Lier, the Swifter Betrayer emerges triumphant. For the day, at least. As Street Kings informs you along the way: "Today's Suspect Is Next Week's Victim".

Best thing about Street Kings is that story inventor James Ellroy knew exactly what he was going for and managed to form the narrative accordingly. The film is very humane, yet this does not necessarily imply that it would give you fruity directions and enlightening reflections on our tender, kind, loving nature. Quite the contrary: it's the Welcome To The Jungle theme this time around, the first person to grab it, is the person to keep it. In such a world, it is suggested and even revealed to be unavoidable that crime and crime pursuit do end up in a symbiotic relationship. Dependency is such that neither could exist without the other. Mild exaggeration here though, as surely, crime easily could emerge as a dominant lifestyle in the LA area, which, if I am not mistaken, it did for real, anyway. Yet the LAPD depicted in Street Kings is not just relentless pursuer of crime - as you will see, crime is benefactor of the legal armed forces, instead.

Street Kings is an aggressive movie with an aggressive pace, which is though easily followable via a nice narrative layout that exhibits sane rhythm, strong plot and solid dialog. The buildup follows veteran LAPD Detective Tom Ludlow during one of the most eventful weeks of his career as a Police Officer. I do think that Keanu Reeves gives us a superb performance this time around, let us notice that stress suits this guy wonderfully, simply because he has an incredible tolerance factor for it, or at least this is what the Big Screen suggests. Keanu simply cannot be broken by stress as he have lost his stress threshold already, thus, he simply accomplishes the current mission and takes a Vodka to it. Ah, you say THAT'S the very trick right there? Either way, Reeves has the natural charisma, composure and personality to render such a character via an utterly solid, believable fashion. It is very easy to relate to Tom Ludlow as you can see that he is under a blatant amount of stress all the time, yet he tolerates and walks through-and with it relentlessly, as being crushed of it would not be an option, at all. And, for Ludlow and Keanu: it is NOT, indeed. That's why he is a superb choice to this role.



- You need to go SLOWER, dude!
- I AM going slower.

Supportive roles are respective musts to mention, as well. Forest "NO, his eyes are NOT different, OK??" Whitaker is always a safe, suitable choice if to render characters of sane authority, this is no exception: he performs greatly as Unit Commander and maybe, JUST maybe he will have cards up his sleeve you did not even dare to think about. But, maybe he won't. Nice is the wonderful world of movie reviewing. Chris Evans is very good, also: as a late sidekick to Ludlow, the kid exhibits solid dignity and proper, juvenile strength to be worthy companion of the hardened Veteran along a way that might lead them to parts both would prefer if never explored. There are two co-cops yet, the dude from Prison Break who thinks he is at least twice as good as he is, but he is not, I can not remember his name, but he either smiles ineptly all the time, or gives you the Oh My God It's Steven Seagal And He Is Attacking Me Ass! face. That pretty much wraps his acting qualities up, as of today. Bah, I look it up! So, his name is Amaury Nolasco. Geez, wish I would not looked THIS one up. The other co-cop of the Unit, Jay Mohr renders a nice, supportive background performance and reigns as source of some quite proper, well placed jokes that do take place between Ludlow and him and actually make you laugh out loud. To tell you the truth, there is a third co-cop, but his role was so transparent, that maybe he is not present in the movie's reality, I just imagined.



The synopsis itself concerns an intuitive setup to starts the narrative off: Ludlow is the Soul of a hardened LAPD Unit, as his Boss puts it: "You are the TIP of the SPEAR, son!" The accomplished veteran has a recently spawned notoriety though which implies him to be a rather trigger-happy fellow who prefers to conduct interviews if and when the suspect wears a black nylon sack during transportation. This assumption is a source of conflict between Ludlow and his former partner, Washington. As it turns out shortly, Washington not only keeps his eyes on Ludlow, he even hooked up with Internal Affairs AND reported Ludlow as evidently dirty. At least, this is what Ludlow is told by the fellow Officers. To put the synopsis swift and simple: Ludlow prefers to knock Washington out the old fashioned way for this betrayal, yet, as he approaches the store his former partner in, there are two dudes in bandana masks that do just the exact same thing. Ludlow runs in to warn Washington about the imminent robbery, yet surely, the former partner considers this exhibited intensity a hit, itself - let us wrap the synopsis up by assuring you that Washington will not be too talkative after the store closes its doors for the night, and Ludlow will have to explore very circumstantial territories via very circumstantial ways to gain knowledge about the identities of the killers, not to mention what, and why exactly have happened in the store.



SPOILER warning that might came late, sorry - STARTS. By this synopsis, I think I gave you quite proper and almost way too precise pointers, especially by suggesting that the hit in the store could have been more than an everyday average normal store murder. It is sad to live in a world like this, yes? Surely, it IS sad, but not as sad as if YOU would commit the murder the very next day. So, come instead tomorrow, as well. SPOILER warning that might came late, sorry - ENDS.

A primal attractive power of the narrative to fuel Street Kings is the trait that characterizes the store hit: though it might sound quite trite, yet you can not be exactly sure of anything. I mean: in this here movie. And, in this here Universe. But the latter is an entirely different discussion. The film gives you six, maybe seven narrative chunks, each of the first four-five relating closely to the investigation, while the final chunks do deliver a truly satisfying conclusion period. Satisfying in the sense that it has an utterly bitter, yet so sorrowfully epic quality to it.



If you did not yet see the movie, please skip this section for now, see the movie, THEN come back. If you saw the movie already, then nice method wasting your lifetime reading the previous sentence, please read on. Notice the final setup of Street Kings. Hugh Laurie - yes, Dr. House is playing in this output, minus his highly humorous, sarcastic comments - expresses his gratitude to the hero, he walks away, case closed, the hero remains. The hero, though he remains, recognizes how this world is not compatible with the cautious, yet rigorous standards he believed in and fought to defend. Keanu looks down on the city, but he can not be sure if the city looks back on him and accepts him, anymore. It seems that he has no place in it, as he remained true to those governing standards, yet all that eventually revealed how utterly corrupted the idea he fought for was. Not because the idea itself is wrong: it is because the city does not tolerate the idea itself anymore, similarly as she does not tolerate the hero. Stopped tolerating them since decades, maybe. Might that be so that Ludlow fought against this very recognition, the one recognition he no longer can hide from? Either way, now it is evident what the City Wants and how it Prefers Things. The Culture of Aggression is what She Claims, and it is also what She Gets and what She Establishes.



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UFC 86 Jackson VS Griffin review

Introduction

Mixed martial arts clearly became a significant form of both mass entertainment and - as Bruce Lee put it - an expression of the human body, the latter being, no doubt, the original field of operation of these ancient traditions, now living and breathing through competitive events around the world. Though many may consider men who enter the proving grounds little more than hired human pitbulls to rip each other apart for hard cash and radical amusement, I tend to utterly reject this rudimentary view, concluding that professional level mma is the combat of highly disciplined human spirits, opposing each other for the duration of the bout, probably ending up as unified in the process as we could conceive, simply through their magnificent shared experience of being in a cage where the damage one suffers is the wit one failed to exhibit. That is how, in my opinion, the mma fighter fights against herself/himself.

Japanese people compete to gain an insight of their own current abilities through the collision process of their skills with that of other's. To me, the ultimately glorious moments of mixed martial arts are not of those of KOs and submissions. They are of those of hugging the formal rival at the end of the bout, circulating the most honest, uncompromised, pure respect each fighter deserves simply by stating themselves on the proving grounds, regardless of the results. The ensuing peace between fighters after a good collision is such a palpable, legit sensation that it never got old so far - and won't ever will.

This here is a review of the UFC event UFC 86 Jackson VS Griffin, time to punch that Read more button, baby!

Introductory thoughts about the more significant lineups

Forrest Griffin and UFC Light Heavyweight Champion Quinton "Rampage" Jackson both delivered sober and charismatic performances in the seventh season of The Ultimate Fighter Reality TV Show as respective coaches of the teams that faced off until but ONE new fighter remained and - in the most puzzling fashion - emerged victorious. Some silly idea might give you the impression that Griffin and Jackson were even - if there ARE such things at all - "way too peaceful" and "way too professional" during the show. Now, are there such things? In my opinion: there are no such things. To me, it was true delight and keen pleasure to watch how mature and easygoing they were during the show, knowing that they will have to kick each other's ass at the culmination of the season.

Though no redundant testosterone talk was present at all, UFC President Dana White probably required some of that nevertheless, because, I think he have thought that the masses want to see Jackson and Griffin flaming each other. How wrong he is. Most people want to see them fight, and they know they will. Yet I understand that White aims for the attention of the everyday average beer molester in camouflage wife beater as well, who just wants to see the living crap being crunched out of someone. If the opposing fighters are accomplished veterans with prior, mutual trash talk sequences delivered - all the better. Thus, the show delivered one, maybe two - in my opinion - semi-staged conflicts that Quinton and Forrest agreed to take part in, but, when they were left to themselves, then they were absolutely professional and respectful towards each other.

Little addendum: it was funny to see the expression on Quinton's face when Jessie Taylor got kicked off the show, following his unacceptable behavior in Las Vegas. You can see Quinton giving the audience the "oooh, poor boy" look, though, in reality, he probably thinks what WE think as well: that Taylor got what he deserved. Terrorizing women in a hotel lobby?? Now, pardon me for pointing out that this is a true WTF.

As frequently cited by UFC commentator Mark Goldberg, Forrest Griffin is indeed the Original Ultimate Fighter. He and Stephan Bonnard put up such an exciting fight in the finale of the first season of the TV Show that they exposed mixed martial arts to the mainstream audience. According to records, there were times when 10 000 000 people watched the live broadcast. Griffin was a hyperactive child and could hardly have a good time without seeking out some competitive physical stimulation. Not because he was mean, but because he was - just like that. Oh, now it sounds better and way more acceptable, right? After playing football where he headbutts opposing team members with helmet on without HIS helmet on, Forrest goes to the police academy, even picks up a casual degree of political sciences, and finally ends up at mixed martial arts, scoring some nice amateur wins.

His first professional mma bout is against highly charismatic UFC Veteran Dan Severn. As Forrest admits in the heavily cited Countdown to UFC 86, Severn was way ahead of him in every aspect of the game. He could not do a thing against the legendary competitor, so he starts insulting him.

"Hey, dude! You are like a fat Freddy Mercury! Dude! You sure do look thinner on TV! Dude, you are like Tom Selleck's fat, old brother!"

I guess this is the early Forrest. The recent Forrest though scored significant wins, most notably, over Mauricio "Shogun" Rua whom he submits in a rear naked choke. By the time in question, Shogun was ranked as the top fighter of the weight class, yet, many claim that he was not at all himself in the Forrest fight. It also worth mentioning that Shogun defeated Rampage in the Pride! days. A truly charismatic warrior with considerable humor and pretty much implausible levels of punishment resistance, Griffin comes to this bout stating that all he needs to be aware of is that he did absolutely everything in his power to win against Rampage, also, he needs to know that he won't quit. He adds that he is willing to take more pain than anybody else. Believable, considering that Forrest beat Edson Paredao with one arm broken. It is like Forrest had a broken arm, not Paredao, you feel me?

This is an interesting match indeed, since, as much as you love Forrest, you got to love Quinton Jackson, as well. No doubt that this extremely loose, humorous person turns into a beast when finds himself in the cage, yet he is one of the most notable faces of an all-around mma fighter palette, a warrior with tremendous experience, executioner of the best, even bestest! slam you have seen in an mma bout, not to mention that he holds two knockout victories over Chuck "The Iceman" Liddell. To be specific, it was Liddell whom Rampage took the UFC Light Heavyweight Belt from in UFC 71 Liddell VS Jackson. Since then, Quinton defended his title against Dan Henderson in UFC 82 Pride of a Champion, now ready to face the man whom many consider to be the most beloved contender to date. Rampage states he is meaner and uglier than Griffin, and he thinks that deep down Forrest knows that he (Griffin) is supposed to lose - and indeed, he will. Let me cite a classic quote from Jackson, though he has a whole arsenal of those. "Forrest looks stupid, but he ain't as stupid as he looks." OK, and yet another, just to prove the point: "I took anger management classes before, but - HELL, those make me ANGRY!"

The co-main event gives you hard hitter dynamite fist Partick Cote, taking on Jiu-Jitsu Black Belt Ricardo Almeida who tries to solidify his comeback trail in the UFC after a longer pause period. He looked superb against Rob Yundt in UFC 81 Breaking Point, pulling off a very quick submission regardless the brutal slam he undergone in the process. Cote is a fervent warrior with one punch stopping power potential in both hands, though he did not yet manage to claim top position in the game when chances were offered. Against Tito Ortiz in UFC 50 and against Lumpergson Stappenheimer in UFC 16, for example. Some of the latter events never happened, though.

Jorge Gurgel vs Cole Miller

Jorge Gurgel likes to put up exciting fights, also prefers to think that excitement only arouses when in the stand up position. A fresh assumption probably, as he has quite a few submission wins himself - yet now he enforces the standup, dismissing all aspirations to take the enemy down. Gurgel looks passionate and convincing in this here back and forth battle, though characterized mainly by Miller's more efficient ability to deliver punishment and to escape from vengeance. Then, finally: Jorge Gurgel looks desperate in the final moments of the third round, as the moments in question do greet the octagon via a ground position. Cole manages to soak a submission attempt in, which proves to be quite effective and claims a tapout of Gurgel.

Gabriel Gonzaga vs Justin McCully

The last time we have seen Gabriel "Napao" Gonzaga in, he was punched until stoppage by Fabricio Verdum in UFC 80 Rapid Fire. You surely do know that Justin McCully himself is a decent puncher at the least, everyone who has a decision win over heavyweight warrior Anthony Hardonk: is. And McCully has such a win to his record. All this seems to be of little concern for The Napao, though. Gonzaga unleashes quite vicious leg kicks to start the match off, one of those does land at the most fruity time possible, when McCully has his own leg in attack position. Gonzaga goes for the stationary leg though, blasting it off from underneath the massive competitor. McCully - surprisingly enough - collapses, Gonzaga is all over him, and, following a brief, mildly successful period of ground and pound assaults to soften McCully up, finds a way to get Justin into a Kimura submission hold. Needless to say, The Big Nose looked truly good and very efficient, let us hope to see him against top level resistance soon, some circumstance he has yet to prove himself under.

Melvin Guillard vs Dennis Siver

How about a first (almost half) minute knock out? Melvin "The Young Assassin" Guillard connects with a double right and consecutive, vicious air to ground missiles, wrapping this confrontation up in the 36th second of the first round. An intense, vulgar display of skills that reigned superior today over those of Siver's.

Corey Hill vs Justion Buccholz

You got to love matches in which the fighter behind manages to come back to sweep a truly impressive victory in. This night delivers you such a phenomena. Corey Hill plays a rather sane and rigorous game here, utilizing his very long limbs to keep Buccholz outside the danger zone. This method and related pace are fruity enough to give the textbook round-win for Hill in the first segment, yet Buccholz comes back even more fervent in the second period and manages to engage Corey in situations that do pose danger to the tall warrior. Hill defends himself from assaults either by going for the clinch or by a takedown - such an invitation to the ground turns out sour for him, though: he offers an incautious moment on the ground for Buccholz who hastily capitalizes: a rear naked choke as clean as you ever saw soaks in, thus there are no options left to Hill save to tap. A huge, impressive comeback victory.

Quinton Jackson vs Forrest Griffin

Many claimed Forrest will have no chance whatsoever against Jackson, not as far as fighting against him - they claimed he will no chance to offer resistance, at all. Rampage comes out rampant, sober with his dynamic, fluent, elusive body movement. Great combinations fly through the octagon, connecting on the defensive lines Forrest wisely withdraws behind, even better: the contender demonstrates admirable sobriety by moving away from the flurries Jackson unleashes. Forrest starts to work on Quinton's left leg early in the game: a series of constant maneuvers that surely do claim a toll on the Werewolf's stance in a short while. The most notable occurrence the first round delivers is an uppercut from Jackson that does buckle Forrest and gives opportunity for Quinton to muscle himself with Griffin underneath him to the fence. Let us watch this closely, as the ground game keeps surprises for us.

In the second round, those low kicks from Forrest finally ask for a steep price from Jackson: the Champion's left leg demands some peaceful period without any molestation whatsoever, that includes: standing on it. Forrest capitalizes on this condition by taking the Werewolf to the ground, a territory that Quinton turns out to be utterly harmless on as far as attack capabilities go, yet he puts up a defensive game of acceptable qualities. Indeed, Quinton is not particularly used to ground based warfare, he now gets pretty much dominated by Forrest. Griffin delivers some ground and pound, though these are not attacks of stopping power, they are more than suitable to leave a semi-withered Jackson behind when the round concludes, nevertheless.

The third, forth and even the final round all do render a back-and forth kickbox match, a period in which neither fighter manages to land assaults of stopping power, though many of the shots surely would take care of most fighters, those with less punishment resistance. The final seconds do greet two standing warriors though, with an unanimous decision going for Forrest Griffin. Wow, and then again: wow! The outcome was/is subject to much debate already, I personally think that in an ideal world, this match would have been: a draw! I do indeed think that neither warrior should have gone away with the W. More precisely:

Neither should be announced a LOSER of the bout.

If I imagine Jackson would have won - then I would say that Forrest performed way too significantly against him to consider HIM a loser of this match. And I feel similar when I inspect the actual outcome: I think Jackson performed way too significantly to take the belt away from him. Extremely talented UFC warrior Lyoto "Dragon" Machida voices a quite sane opinion in THIS interview. As you can see, he states that the UFC simply prefers Chuck "The Iceman" Liddell with the belt, so, now that Jackson lost it, a match between Forrest and Chuck could, and probably will be arranged. Though the hypothesis sounds sober enough, we should never forget that Forrest managed to wage war for five rounds of intense combat against a bloodthirsty Werewolf, though, as I expressed before, I do not think that either of them have won this bout convincingly. Preventing Quinton from winning convincingly though is an accomplishment on it's own, let alone putting up a fight against him that makes you wonder if either of them have performed superior, though. Either way - there is no place anymore to call Forrest a fluke.

But, in an attempt to solidify my assumption further: you should beat the Champion like: baaad to emerge as New Champion. OK, at least: convincingly. This though, Forrest DID NOT DO, and he agrees with this view. When asked if he had doubts that he have won, he expressed that he absolutely had. He had no idea of what exactly went on, as it is utterly different being IN a fight and being a spectator. Quinton was pure class after the bout, he admitted that he had his ass whooped, - though he did not, either of them had - but let me tell you this: losing does not suite for the Werewolf. I still do think that he should not been announced a loser. And either Forrest should have been announced one. A DRAW, that should have been, did I mention?

Tyson Griffin vs Marcus Aurelio

This match was strange, in my opinion. It was like Marcus Aurelio came here to be the training partner of Tyson. Thus: he is allowed to defend himself, but offering resistance is a general no-no, as that would confuse the dictated and intended pace the trained warrior is subjected to. Griffin is effective enough in the starting period, even gets ruthlessly efficient via the ensuing air to ground assaults. In general, you could say that Griffin demonstrates his skill set on an opponent who seemingly came here to defend himself, not to rip someone in two. I think it has a lot to do with the respect Aurelio shows for Griffin's punching power and intensity, yet, the Brazilian fails to deliver a resistance factor you or Tyson could count with. An interesting match nevertheless, as Marcus defends himself sanely and quite effectively during the bout, yet the complete absence of the aspiration to be aggressor as opposed to be hunted all the time certainly points out that he needs to work on his attack strategies.

Josh Koscheck vs Chris Lytle

I suppose a blood feast is among the secretive little surprises you are longing for when a UFC event progresses by, and denying this would be worse than accepting it naturally. Now, to be slightly more serious, let us recognize this: as long as you can be sure that no one will be harmed permanently, then blood is not just acceptable, but part of the show. Referee Yves Lavigne surely must share this, or at least a highly similar point of view, as the conditions he nods his head upon here are: gross. Even grooooss. Probably the most bloody mma bout I have seen to date, and I must say I have no intention to see it get more bloodier than this, simply because of considerations for safety of the warriors. I can imagine one exception though that could and should produce more blood than this particular match did: if blood would pour from both participants. I realize I might sound like a bloodthirsty maniac, - but I am truly not, harharh! - yet I think such circumstance would be an acceptable one. Please comment and assure me that I need help.

As for the match itself, Koscheck demonstrates an ever-solidifying skill set, an array of tools ready to be tested by Chris Lytle who is an obstacle everyone must face if prefer to move higher up on the UFC rankings, yet, more fall back then do succeed when facing this solid, well versed veteran. Koscheck himself is a veteran too, though: they render a rather balanced stand up collision with Koscheck's fervent willingness to take this war to the ground. Josh goes for the takedown right away in the second period, shortly after this, he opens up a cut on Lytle that bleeds quite heavily and pretty much tells the story of this match more profoundly and precisely than anything else could.

This particular story mainly concerns Koscheck's relentless ground and pound assaults at the fence. Lytle, being a hardened veteran, delivers a defensive game on his back of considerable efficiency, yet the blood loss claims a toll on his overall composure, thus resistance offered by him is highly limited due both to the dire situation and the wound. Referee Yves Lavigne deserves credit in the long run for letting this fight go to a well deserved decision to Koscheck. Notice Lavigne's instruction to stand the fighters up when punishment is absent: this is a very sober and - I dare say this - graceful decision from him, saving Lytle from an even more serious injury, yet letting the confrontation to wrap itself up with a conclusion that knows no controversy whatsoever. Credit for all three participants in the octagon for a soberly supervised, and - sorry about that - properly executed blood bath.

Joe Stevenson vs Gleison Tibau

Brief exchange of mild efficiency starts this one off, then a rather funky shoulder lock attempt gets utilized at the clinch by Tibau. The grip is tight enough to worth stick for, yet the angle is far from ideal. A rather interesting sequence ensues which is reminiscent to a stalemate, in which neither fighter is able to develop their respective positions. The bell puts an end to this relatively passive, yet interesting struggle. Though Stevenson lost against BJ Penn in UFC 80 Rapid Fire, his guillotine choke remains bad news in case you find yourself caught up in it. Gleison Tibau is now a brand new, fresh assurer of the latter statement, as he gets into Joe's tight grip in the second round, forced to tap out.

Patrick Cote vs Ricardo Almeida

Hitter vs Grappler. Almeida shows an increased willingness to stand up, even better: his skills show steep development in this aspect, especially if you have the chance to watch them ensue against such a dangerous stand up fighter as Cote is. The Black Belt Jiu-Jitsu practitioner exhibits a game which is, though highly sober and technical, mainly concerns a defensive approach that plans to offer stopping power via countering. This is not easily done against Cote, though. Almeida maintains a rigorous, safe pace, even manages to go for some submission attempts, yet, at the end of the day, Ricardo's massively defensive countering game does come in short against Cote's superior aggression and relentless willingness to engage. Quite an even match at it's core, in which Cote performs more dangerously and convincingly though, no doubt.

A great night of memorable moments and one particular, yet immense semi-controversy. If there is such a thing at all as an immense semi-controversy, that is. From now on: there is. Hope you enjoyed the evening and found the review useful. Thank you for reading it, and see you next time.

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Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Big Screen Board Game
The LaBeouf Hack

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Indiana Jones IV ain't half as bad as many feared it would be, and ain't half as good as an even wider audience hoped it would turn out as. Indy inventor George Lucas is at large herein indeed, giving us the action packed board game adventure-run even the previous, serious Indy movies are famous of and loved for. Indy IV is not as serious of a movie than the first three, though. Not in the sense that it fails to deliver drama and tension, in fact, does not even aspire to do that. Satisfies with the character of a risk free family adventure. I already tend to see the everyday average generic Indiana Jones geek in front of my fine tuned - ye bet - third eye: naturally, the everyday average generic Indiana Jones geek has a better understanding of the character than George Lucas does, and you can bet your future, your fortune or both (if you HAVE both) that the average everyday generic Indiana Jones geek LOATHES this movie, and loathes it - this is the case, sorry - on a highly rigorous, scientific basis. Then when you close your third eye - suddenly it turns out that the geek was: YOU.

Thus I must call myself an Indy geek in this regard, since, as hinted, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull lacks all proper drama and proper tension indeed, elements that are extremely strong and superpresent in the previous movies. Just take the first, longer jungle sketch Raiders of the Lost Ark starts off with. I think we can easily say that absolutely every single frame of that sketch is a timeless classic, and I refuse to admit or even think that this is caused by some nostalgia or some similar, trite redundancies. No, no and a triple no: nonono! That is good because Lucas had excellent concepts and superb ideas to tell those via a fluent narrative structure. The film knew it, and thus, the audience knew that, too - because they saw and recognized these elements with keen acceptance and related delight.

In a sober reality, - HAH! - I think it remains safe to say that the new Indy will give semi-acceptable time for both the open minded and the popcorn zombie audience, by which I mean an approach that does not necessarily expects wonders but ends up satisfied if it finds itself surprised on a few occasions. Beside all that, though: expect as lightweight caliber of entertainment from Indy IV which might as well leave you to wonder if it really happened at all.

Though George Lucas informed the audience that he is absolutely aware of how a portion of the hardened Indy fans will end up being totally dissatisfied with, or even enraged at the movie, he quite sympathetically states that he and good old sandbox buddy/director Steven Spielberg do the Indy sequel for fun. I think this is fair enough, and let me tell you this: for this agenda, they live up to in a somewhat decent manner. Yet, I would add that in the ideal parallel universe, Lucas would revive Indy because he has yet another tale to tell about him, and not because his creator wants to have fun. But hey, being honest and not projecting stuff about the amazing content hiding behind Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is certainly an act that would never happen in the worst universe, so no point in being pessimistic.

What I found harder to accept though is that it seems to me as Lucas would have temporarily lost his interest of forming tension and suspense. Sure, I realize that these are qualities you normally associate - falsely, by the way - with the horror genre, yet I can't resist to draw your attention back to the previous installments. Those movies have a thorough and essential understanding and relation of- and to- suspense and tension. On the contrary: Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is a pretty much risk free adventure run for the whole family in which everybody is quite happy and thoroughly cared for.

The structure is very easy to see through this time around, so let's take it apart via reverse engineering. What you get is basically a matrix of car chases that do follow sequences in which Indy deciphers information from objects worth chasing for. Now, that Indy even has the info, the chase is an evident MUST to conduct and commit if you are the Main Baddie character. As for the fourth episode, the highest stake of the game is the Crystal Skull, and primal seeker of it is Cate Blanchett. She looks absolutely OK for a woman you don't necessarily want to play the "Oh Please Tie Me To The Bed Please!" game with, even better, Blanchett delivers a highly acceptable performance supported by some - that equals: two - solid lines and subtle meta communication.



The global buildup is outlined precisely after like 15 minutes into the movie, by this period you are free to form your hideous assumption that the massively chase related narrative-loop you have been just subjected to will haunt/please you for yet another five or six occasions before the movie could reach it's conclusion. A conclusion which surely gives the decent leg shake and decent scream factor for the conservative Indy veteran, yet, I personally failed to end up being enraged at it. Quite the contrary: I have nothing against the ending of the narrative itself, what frightens me considerably though is the actual ending, which we will touch upon later.

As for this particular narrative-loop, I do refer to the hinted elements Indy 4 primarily relies on: a brief period of inventive peace and brainstorming is usually shown, though supported mostly by trite, boring, tasteless dialog between the protagonists. Not always, though: Lucas must have had start to take some pills or just happened to stop taking some others, as he could come up with some very amusing situations and dialogs, such is the intense debate taking place between all the actors whom are tied down and packed into a truck, rolling to parts probably best if never known. The sketch is very original and properly humorous in my opinion, a brief yet quite intense period in which Lucas shows that he has masterful skills both to spot and to clearly reveal fruity contents and pure potential of a setup. This is what I miss from his recent works, yet it seems to solidify a personal suspicion of mine. My suspicion is this: Lucas still can tell a tale very fluently if he HAS a tale to tell. But sometimes he tells one though he does not really have one.



By the diversity of the settings, scenery and the obstacles the protagonists must chase each other in- and between, Indy IV delivers acceptable flamboyancy with certain, though sometimes limited capacity to surprise the audience. There Will Be Blood and moments in which Lucas's intention to administer surprise overkills itself and ends up being utterly laughable, though. The fencing scene with jeeps in it is the worst narrative sedative I ever witnessed at work to date. And I would be pretty happy if I could be left knowing that it CAN NOT GET MUCH MORE painful than that. Oh, if you are an Indy veteran, you will love, you will worship the fencing scene with jeeps in it. Just remember and recite ruthlessly: I am an Indy veteran! Then: reconsider.

In my opinion, Harrison Ford looks stable, intact and believable as a late Indiana Jones, even Lucas kept his horses under control and offers but a few references and semi-clumsy jokes relating to the well developed age of the protagonist. You see, this little delight is the core of the main problem, as well. So let me be pessimistic a bit, just for flamboyancy and FOR FUN. Why offer silly jokes about an elder Indiana Jones who established himself timeless within his previous tales, and looks and acts as cool in them as an adventurer could EVER hope for? Lucas delivered the answer: for fun. This is totally acceptable of course, because it does not take away from the greatness of the trilogy, mind you I. But let me ask you - and YOU, George! - what does it ADD to the trilogy?

At least, there are some OK jokes and ideas to exploit Indy's age. Not too many. Two comes to my mind, yet only one is very good. The other is bad, actually. I particularly liked the first stunt with the trademark whip.

Via it's narrative, let alone the conclusion, Indy IV offers a rather stable premise about the coming availability of future Indy projects, thus, a sidekick is inevitable this time around, sometimes making you wonder if Harrison Ford is the actual main character of the movie at all.



Dreaming is nice, making dreams a reality is even nicer, yet concluding them for eternity, never to touch upon them again is not necessarily a must, I think. As noted, I I totally respect Lucas's honesty when he voices that they revive Indy for fun. Especially since I do not consider Indy IV a tremendous failure, expect for

Shia LaBeouf, the Indiana Jones Hack

One gets the impression that Lucas now considers Indiana Jones for a popcorn zombie environment. In this regard, Indy IV is a transitional movie in which the old Indy is paired by/stuck with this mildly annoying sidekick, a supportive role that might be a gravitational role in the "Indy movies" to come. So, in case you are a grouchy individual or hardened Indy fan OR both, then you could easily say that Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is but an excuse of a movie to introduce the Next Gen Indiana Jones. Thus: enter The Shia LaBeouf, FEAR The Shia LaBeouf!

Not as much as you Fear The Matthew Fox of course, but be aware, nevertheless. I must say that I am not completely blown away by LaBeouf's skill set, but I was totally OK with him in Transformers. As of today, I think Shia LaBeouf is suitable to give you sidekicks, early 20s and quasi-losers, a decent partner to Michael Angarano who sucks amazingly in Forbidden Kingdom. Well, I think, LaBeouf is similarly an EMO, a sucker-archetype. I realize it's sort of harsh to voice opinions like this about real people, but don't forget that they are not "just real people", they are people for- and of entertainment. And let me tell you this: it is definitely giving me the twitch at mouth corners when I see Shia "Who The Pink Hell In Heaven Is This Slim Punk??" LaBeouf intimidating Indiana Jones. I don't know if you are with me here. There are sequences in Indy IV in which Shia LaBeouf's character intimidates Indiana Jones. What a laugh, and what a bitter of it! This is unacceptable, Lucas, get real!



Good Old Family Fun

I do not know where LaBeouf keeps his Guardian Angels and his supporters, but he must have pretty influential ones of those, as he is definitely not as good as to be the next Indiana Jones, and the most terrible, terrrrible thing to encounter in Indy IV is exactly this, nevertheless. Yes, there is a 99,9% probability that Shia LaBeouf will be the next Indiana Jones. A NEXT Indiana Jones for a NEXT audience, I would think.

Will probably come to you as an implausible surprise that there were some quite harsh criticisms addressed towards Lucas relating his recent works, including this Indy output and his Star Wars prequels. The most humorous dialog I have seen to date as far as this matter goes took place between two immensely disappointed Indy fans on imdb.

"- Lucas needs to retire in GRACE!"
"- Too late!"

I think Lucas and Spielberg delivered acceptably for a family friendly environment, yet this movie lacks pretty much all kinds of charms and qualities the hardened fans would prefer to sink their teeth into. What nonsense, though. Let us notice that Lucas and Spielberg told absolutely everything worth telling about the "proper", the "serious" Indiana Jones and he reigns timeless and immaculate, thanks to Harrison Ford's irreplaceable performance and personal charisma.

Thus, I think you couldn't possible anticipate much more and much different beyond what Kingdom of the Crystal Skull offers, considering that the installment is targeted for a superwide spectrum of an audience as far as the age palette of the viewers goes. Apart from Shia Senselessly Overrated Transformers 2 and I WIll Be Indy, Too! Labeouf and the plain, gruesomely masterful suggestion that he might be the new Indy, - the suggestion is indeed implemented masterfully and very unpleasant to watch for me - Indy IV weights in as risk-free entertainment for the whole family, coming towards you on the board game adventure register, giving you either but occasional periods to think about the things you need to do by the day yet, or just one, sticky, persistent period of the exact same quality.



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Red Planet

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Director Antony Hoffman decided to retire right after his first and only feature film presentation, the one which is not happened to be called Hostile Giant Space-Leeches from Galaxy Xixugon Whom Release Nerve Gases To Kill All 3, instead chose to enrich consensus by the more simple yet highly informative title Red Planet. It is not a communist propaganda though, or a very masterfully concealed at that it is. Red Planet gives us a rather acceptably realized and presented fictional output about the first (wo)manned expedition to Mars. Of one thing, you can be supersure of, though: if and when Hollywood gives you a rendition of an expedition to Mars, then something will go: terribly, terrrribly wrong. Red Planet submits hastily and keenly to this surficial observation, inventing whole new and pretty interesting tastes and dimensions of trouble.

The synopsis is this: Earth is exhausted, overpopulated AND nearly out of Cola and oxygen, too. Intended solution is to send through space probes to Mars with alga on board, so the plants could produce oxygen on the Red Planet. Bizarrely enough: one day oxygen levels do start to drop, and no one knows why it is happening - thus an expedition is sent over to Mars both to find out the reason for oxygen droppings and to confirm that the planet looks and feels OK otherwise. At least, those are the unvoiced hopes of Wo(man)kind.

Behold Carrie-Anne Moss, Commander of the ship and primal coordinator of the expedition. She is highly OK in the movie except maybe for the silly segments in which she is to exhibit personality mixture of intact authority and leisure, this is something that she was asked to do though, let us not forget this. Suffice it to say that Red Planet, being a movie released in 2000, delivers some hilarious effect-cravers to convince all of how a woman can be a good and skilled drinker. Like you ever would deny such a skill set from a woman.



As you will surely, at least likely notice, primal protagonist is Val Kilmer, supported by totally acceptable sidekick performances from - most notably - Tom Sizemore, Benjamin Brett and Simon Baker, who actually sucks noticeably, but this is OK, as so does his character. It is not to say that his character or his performance would lack legit function or significant content, though: quite the contrary.

Antony Hoffman's movie is highly aware of and subtly serves the universal approaches and methods of group-related sci-fi storytelling. While characters are diverse in their personalities, differences are not too massively and/or redundantly emphasized. Protagonists instead tend to deliver their focal personal notions they could come up with to this day, an element the movie goes for a more serious (?) touch with, yet surely it fails wonderfully in the long run. This latter observation correlates with the brief yet intact role delivered by Terence Stamp. One can not escape the impression that the writers could not help giving abruptly away absolutely ALL that Stamp's "deeply spiritual character" was about. These elements were not too numerous though: Stamp has maybe three or four lines of semi-serious spirituality to deliver prior Higher Forces will decide that it is better for him to benefit the mission via other ways than originally intended.



The I AM ONE WITH THE UNIVERSE! - look and posture.

The expedition goes awry before it would have a chance to actually start: the ship stumbles upon a blatantly powerful solar flare thus many of the equipments end up being in need of immense care and repairs. Moss needs to stay on the main ship and release the surface capsule from outer space manually, as the launcher itself is malfunctioning. It will shock you tremendously though that the surface capsule will be boarded by all the other expedition members and they will be on their way in a short time to explore the surface of the Red Planet. More specifically: to locate the human made HAB1 facility which supposedly contains resources making life and thus further explorations possible for a small group for six months.



- Not a damn toilet ANYWHERE around!
- PLEASE tell me you are KIDDING.

If things were just "this easy": during the landing procedure, many vital equipments are scattered throughout the planet's surface including primary navigational instruments that could have calculate and point out the most effective way to HAB1. Little though intense time do remain nevertheless until your protagonists do manage to locate the facility - just to find it utterly, completely destroyed.

This is the actual turning point of Red Planet from which on quite integral drama is formed. Giving away actual portions of the narrative would spoil enjoyment significantly, thus I refrain to do that herein. Yet, giving elements away and but outlining them vaguely is not identical: suffice it to say that the movie chooses to utilize a quite nice, yet, at the same time, pretty cleverly emotional concept to enrich itself with via the total lack of communication capabilities between the leader ship in outer space and the crew members of Mars. I think there is something subtle and bizarre to this solution: both the leader ship with it's superior logistic abilities and the crew are in the embrace of Mars, yet they can not exchange information with each other now that the planet finally reveals it's true, - amazingly enough - planetary proportions. Mars is not just an enigmatic crimson blob far-far away from the place you likely reading this from, but it is also a galactic entity of vast and intimidate proportions that do imprison visitors if they approach these proportions and conditions unprepared. Or: unequipped, as the crew members do end up as here.



Red Planet introduces and maintains a firm ability to move it's narrative on through radical developments, keeping interest factor intact and stable. Though one could - in my opinion - falsely argue that there is not much that could go on on a desolated planet with five people and a mechanical superunit on it's surface, those vast perspectives definitely do gain "bonus appeals" when they are observed and affected by human. Here is how planetary proportions could be easily affected by a single, puny human: you affect them by looking at them. By doing so, you affected them already, don't you think?

There are living, in this case: humane motives are present not just in front of these vast distances, but literally ON them, trying to reach their fruity conclusions on a place which is deeply alienated for the human we currently know of as a specie. Man observed Mars from great distance, now man observers HIMSELF on Mars. And surely, Mars is present all over the place - SIC! - to observe man's observations.



Red Planet is not half as bad as many did, would or will claim to you it is. Thanks to it's primal depiction of the enigmatic, desolated crimson planet and the decent microcommunity drama to take place on the surface, the movie tolerated passing years in a quite unnoticeable fashion, if production values are concerned. And they ARE concerned, when the Opinion Onion emerges to scrutinize! My only whining factor would concern the musical support for the piece, as that is extremely shallow saved for the decent, funny songs to save something of the credit list. Apart from this though, it is safe to say that Red Planet, similarly to it's prime inspirator Mars, never ever made the effort to deny time, as they both seem to be in a very intact harmony with it. Thus no need to deny the ultimate conqueror, - which is time, by the way - as the majority of what the film shows are eternal sights and experiences to behold and to live through.



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The Incredible Hulk 2008

More Credible Incredible?
variants on a Story Board


Hulk is Incredible, no doubt about it, and no matter what. It seems totally out of sobriety to me if one calls oneself fond of light, yet subtle fiction for entertainment and refuses to worship the Hulk. Stan Lee came up with his green angry idea in the ´60s, and there is not many fictional inventions of popular culture that could remain to reign for such a long period. Characters from various comics did though, now having their chances to validate themselves as motion picture adaptations. Hulk, being a successful comic character, is no exception. The green humanoid monster of semi-epic proportions, who rips apart all in one of his 32492834293 purple trousers is a being who is great fun to enrage - just don't be near him when you do. While a fresh motion picture output about The Inrcedible Hulk is always firm subject matter to be enthusiastic about, there is nothing, absolutely nothing hip-, nothing mean-, and, worst of all: nothing Incredible about THIS Hulk.


Ang Lee´s Hulk movie from 2003 was, in my opinion, a ruthless punishment committed against the Hulk myth I believe(d) to be true, or at least, thought to be proper. A movie that unleashed the most horrific low blow on me that I could imagine by the day: the Ang Lee Hulk direction denied all chances from me to like it. It was the worst Hulk output I endured so far, I would choose a slap from an angry Bruce Banner over yet anothe sit-through of the movie in question, no doubt. As of today, when Mr. Lee is asked about a possible Hulk sequel directed by him, he states that that particular movie still has a long way to come. Then there is hope yet, because hope dies first, but inviting the worst.

Now, could there be worse than the worst? Surely, it is easy. It is worse than the worst when worst seems to stuck around, and invites history to repeat itself.

Apart from the comic form, Marvel ruthlessly, even sanely - as we will see - emerges to establish itself more- and more as an entertainment group focused on motion pictures. The group thoroughly checks which of its zillion characters it can make proper money of, which is absolutely acceptable, but I tend to think that the agenda is to make the movie adaptations with minimum effort put into them. I realize I might sound a bit harsh here, but, in reality, this is not necessarily the case. Let us see into this. Never forget that Marvel already delivered storytelling excellence via the original comic forms of these movie adaptations, thus these motion picture variants are to be considered as - in good case - nice supportive contents to enrich the depicted myths, yet, they could also end up as scant, stale fiscal ripoffs ordered by rights-proprietors with the maximum profit- and minimum effort equation in mind. Something you can not really blame them for, as you can always have the Real Deal Hulk as the original experience via the comic form, yet, in a Marvelous World, even the Hulk movies would deliver evidently strong drama and/or action. I would be utterly satisfied with either of those, but their mutual absence is the worst combined trait a Hulk movie can go to the screen with, I think.

Normally you should not get a nervous breakdown, or at least not too radical of that in case a movie proves to be deeply "inferior" when compared to the wholeness of its originator. Especially not since these primal forms of comic book characters have decades of fiction to power them. These recent comic adaptations must show faithfulness to the original variants, with steep awareness from the creators of how the hardcore fan will take her/his revenge if things are not presented as they should have been.

Thus Marvel sought out/established this particular minimum effort it absolutely NEEDS to put in into these movies. But now these comic book adaptations are so reminiscent to each other that now temptation is sorrowfully steep to skip the usual sequences of textbook character drama about lost loves and terrible secrets and a liking for the bizarre and jump to the actual happenings right away. But either THAT won´t surprise you all that much, probably. The new Hulk is a great example: when he transforms for the first time and they start shooting him like crazy -well, I can imagine how anxious you were that Hulk might actually end up shot dead in the 15th minute. What an intense, well researched period!

See my point? This predictability is virtually killing all potential out of a narrative to cause relevant peek moments. Military personnel shooting the Hulk. And it has no effect. Thus they shoot again both to deny and to confirm. And both of these desires are satisfied, as, amazingly: the bullets have STILL NO EFFECT WHATSOEVER on the Gamma Beast! Some seriously exciting stuff there, wouldn´t you agree?

I think it is safe to say that Marvel surely has the bomb-and bulletproof Marvel Comic book Character Story Board That The Audience Will Keenly Suck In. Revealer of the minimum effort that will get people into the theaters still, yet in reality, a safe, even shallow of an effort it is that does not have ANY, absolutely ANY aspiration to enrich or to develop the depicted and adapted fictions via any directions.

Statement: things in Marvel movies, especially dialogs actually seem to go on utterly inept and massively underdeveloped paths these days.

Solidification: check the lines of the female protagonist, Liv Tyler. God, the lines she shoots, poor lady, her role is truly horrible. I guarantee you that every single time when she and the Hulk will be present on the canvas together, she will inform the Gamma Beast and you that:

"It´s OK!"

It´s not like "It´s OK!" and then it is NOT OK, it is like - "It´s OK!" and it is always "It´s OK!" to the point from which on you can not help but think that retarded monkeys on massive sedatives had to nod their heads on these dialog lines. Or: maybe even THEY did not have to. Seriously, how a production team could give the green light on that? They probably said: "It´s OK." And poor Liv Tyler blames them eternally. Yet, I guarantee your neurons will fry out all at once as soon as Liv informs the "Hulkic Monstrocity" for the THIRD time about the unfolding events that do surround them! This is truly puzzles me, and concerns their third confrontation. Here Liv tells THIS to the Hulk:

"It´s OK!"

So, now it seems evident that Marvel operates a pretty meat grinder in which you fill in the trademark character on the top and good old money comes off on the bottom. These aforementioned example-deficits do concern a clear lack of interest - sorry for the neat metaphoric disturbance - to develop dialog, drama and character relations. This is not a tragedy, of course. Yet imagine how good a good Hulk movie could be.

Check out little tiny events nevertheless that are interconnecting various Marvel movies with each other - usually at the very end - so anticipation is considerable for the imminent Marvel EPIC only a FOOL would miss out on. But, to be honest with you, I think these recent Marvel efforts - yes, Iron Man and this here effort Hulk included - do rely on such a strictly calculated and predictable storytelling narrative that virtually it would be absolutely OK to see ONE recent Marvel motion picture and substitute the heroes with each other. You won´t miss anything. I realize that my words do have an interpretation field from which on I might sound like an utterly negative person, and one could tell me something like this:

"This is a comic adaptation, dude. Why don´t you get an antidepressant or a life and enjoy the movie for what it is? A COMIC. ADAPTATION. Got it?"



AHHHAHAHAH! A Comic Adaptation!
AHHAHA! HAHA! HAHAHAH! AHHHAAH!

Surely, I would drink keenly those words in case I would have had the chance to experience flamboyant lightweight entertainment characterized by: - this is it - fun. FUN! FUN! Where is my fun from this Hulk movie? I looked for it, I sought for it, and OH!, it was my persistence doing these that led me to this here conclusion: no, no, no, no, no. Marvel does NOT make comic adaptations anymore. What Marvel does is it is simply using the Universal Story Board I fantasized of before. The workflow, if I am correct, is pretty much similar to a First Person Shooter game's map editor. Marvel redraws the characters, weapons and enemies. Sells the New Game, the New Hero, the New Movie. Does and creates no things to surprise you, yet I do realize that this is not the agenda, either.

I accept that Marvel is not in an easy position if it wants to impress all generations, yet I do have the feeling that the company instead chose to form a compromise which they thought would weight in as highly acceptable for most viewers, and now we are in the period where the answer will shortly be born whether they were right. This will happen by the day Avengers do hit that theater near you with zillions of superheroes in it. Have no doubt of course that it will be a blockbuster. In the meantime, let us hope that Robert Downey JR.'s affectations and Bruce Banner will team up with each other to visit Samuel L. Jackson who has absolutely no concept of saying "no" for a question if it concerns a movie, a role proposal, and him. True. I did not yet forgive for Jumper. Not for Samuel L. Jackson, and not for Anakin.

To wrap this account on the new Hulk blaming up, let us run through the synopsis in a brief fashion yet: Banner will be forced to withdraw from his original habitat, will be forced to cover his identity, he has a secret friend and an archenemy, later he will reunite with the love of her life whose father is the co-archenemy. Banner will produce maybe 2 or 3 focal rampages in Hulk form and none of those will look particularly impressive, and I do not say this because I decided to not write anything good about this movie. It's simply: not. That. Good.

Check the screaming, when Hulk emerges for the first time. Now, is this a scream to chase your astral body galaxies away? Hardly. Yet such is the scream that I would anticipate from the Hulk. Animators had but below average success revealing rampant Hulk destruction. No worries though: when they realize that they succeeding only but mildly at best, comes Saviour gentle creature Liv Tyler to deliver the cited, most memorable line of this product:

it's ok



- It's OK!
- NO! It's NOT OK! OK?

In reality though, nothing is OK with this movie, as there is absolutely nothing in it which is beyond "being ok." I don't think I should be regarded as an incorrigible idealist if I prefer to demand freshness, cunningness, a degree of narrative subtlety, surprise power, and most importantly: good old FUN from a Hulk movie. Seldom are the times when even great actor Edward Norton looks inept on the big screen, yet the 2008 Hulk will give you sequences of such antipower. Sorrowfully lame attempts at humor, pointless, though surely harmless references to former Hulk adaptations are accessible as well, yet those probably caused much more joy for the creators of these references than for the contemporary audience, but now I might truly be crude here.

Nevertheless behold Lou Ferrigno and please never forget to laugh out honestly and louldy as Edward Norton tells him: "You Are The Man!" This is so cute. So humane. So: so -- sorry, robs sobbing soul out of me. Anyway. Exceptionally weak renditions of tough emotional situations are of focal additional attractions to interconnect the peek sequences you most likely signed on for. Peek sequences surely do concern Hulk and Puny Humans with related vehicles and objects they created. Entropy thus emerges triumphant as Hulk goes and Smashes. As mentioned, CG is above average at best, while Hulk's convince power as far as good old destruction goes weights in as below average, in my opinion. Utterly shallow final conflict - sorry I spoiled your enjoyment - and a credit list of true relief power to wrap this product up. For a product, it is an acceptable effort. For a Hulk movie: it is a joke, and a bad one at that, too. I still worship The Hulk, not The Hulk 2008, though.

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Dreamcatcher

Don't Blame THIS On The Sunshine

Order Highly Hostile Alien Lifeforms! from Amazon

OH!, I tried and I tried and I tried until I grew tired of trying. It was nice not giving instantly in for consensus opinion about how tremendously and how extremely bad this movie was sucking as. I thought it must have had SOME charm(s) to it, and now I do know that my suspicion was legit, yet one must admit that sucking tremendously and extremely bad, let alone doing both at the same time all do gain an entire different perspective, a highly illegal warped dimension and a zillion variants of delicate fresh meanings to them once the motion picture adaptation of Stephen King's Dreamcather is about to rampantly, ruthlessly rise! You are even free to unleash the muhaha, sadly.

As hinted, there is charm, even considerable amount of it in this output, yet Dreamcather boasts one of the the most trite flaws a film can come up with, in my opinion: it has no idea about what it wants to focally state, what it wants to thoroughly soak you into, what it wants to primarily surround you with. All these cluelessnesses do show hastily, thus there is little more to be offered than the depiction of loose directives, speaking a language which is suitable to share but the shallowest of lies to conclude a buildup of evidently promising initial qualities.
It is absolutely natural and thus totally OK to have some inspirations, even fixations as a creative person such as King. It would be a waste of good suffering to point out how Dreamcather relies on the alien-centered horror classic The Thing from 1982 as the author himself probably would have no desire to deny this evident source of inspiration he keenly and - initially - smartly used in his output. Dreamcather starts out in an easily approachable, smoothly likeable fashion, giving you a small group of good friends whom regularly spend some free time together in a highly isolated region characterized by blizzard, beer and binges. Firmly normal, nice stuff, no doubt.

Behold the Unbeknownst! of whom King himself could not possibly be serious. And, as he was not indeed, behold the casual psychic connections which do surround the depicted alien invaders just to deliver extra appeals for a very usual terrorrun which you have seen all before of. Take heed and bear witness nevertheless to the truth that lurks in this flick, as this truth reveals astonishing forms and degrees of delicare narrative murder for us, despite how this murdered narrative had no chance to born in the first place.

Little time is to remain prior the revelation of an alien organism which comes to the little wooden house in a human host. The friends do give shelter and take care of the half-frozen individual, regardless how he could be used up as a device of biological warfare. The poor man has an immense amount of hideous content in him - you do not even want to begin to imagine them - and he can not help but account on some of those via hmmm, offering glimpses of them on not necessarily too polite registers. There are though times when options are not given thus can not be taken, either.



Picture that you find the newcomer on the toilet at the very next morning, though he does not look too lively, even alive while spending quality (?) time in the ancient consensus position. The dude already revealed the most hideous stuff that had to be revealed, though there is but a toiler present that had the unfortunate chance to both witness and to bath the inherent entity in it's now-free, rampant form. A hostile alien life form in a toilet is bad news, trust me, especially when the former, now-dead host sits in the toilet that conceals the thing. The Thing, haha, phun excessively intended.

The output feels quite integral and strong to this point, in my opinion. The alien lifeform offered is a rude, aggressive, evil little mofo, and, as it will turn out hastily yet effectively, it is not at the top of the foodchain of the aliens that seemingly happened to visit Planet Earth. I guess "seemingly" can even be quite convincing, sometimes.

Enjoy the brief, fragile moments when harrassments by aliens are occurring on the canvas as the movie takes an entire different direction in an abrupt fashion, pretty much ending up as an everyday average "B" videogame with a background story about elite military units with the will to kick xenomorph butts. The moment great actor Morgan Freeman appears on canvas is the same second Dreamcatcher ignites it's mounted rockets to gain full speed power towards sour, sorrowful oblivion. Suffice it to say that you will see and hear how Freeman's character is totally fed up - haha, fed up! - with the aliens, and how he plans to lead a final assault on the hive the hostiles have established in the area. Absolute "B" action movie tastes are cooked out and served herein, which is totally OK under other circumstances - yet a rather unfortunate reverse-development when you do dare to anticipate or wish for neat, funny, inventive horrors.



Dreamcather is a work of hyperaggressive cliché abuse, as King accounts every single of his favorite fixations he as an author is seemingly obsessed of working with. These include: the Bigass Terrible Secret that connects the good friends via their shared past, - IT, anyone? - a Secret so horrible that it is only worth remembering and accounting on by the pale moonlight with a safety-fireplace present, also you absolutely must include some supernatural touch to your buildup once you want to amaze your audience with an instant horror mixture - though you do NOT have the acceptable/convincing weight and content to either of the components you do use up to form your mixture.

King offers you the shared past between the good friends the film focuses on, yet the Secret is not a Thing now, but a person. A psychic little dude who imbues his very special gifts on the friends because they were kind to them and defended him when evil big bullies tried to feed dogshite to him. Ah. This is so shocking, so horrible, so King. Sorry, I absolutely respect this great horror author. I confess I am not super-familiar with his work but I am aware of how masterful ideas he had and shared with consensus already - but I think it is safe to say that he has a tendency to utilize radical, pretty much lightweight comic book emotional abuse - which is not a blame factor on it's own, of course - to give a false weight to characters he is not satisfied with. The shallow characters. In Dreamcather, this feelings haunts me considerably. All these characters are quite shallow, and they have psychic powers because, I think, King THOUGHT they absolutely need to have them so they could be more interesting. But it did not turn out too good, I suppose. So, you need a highly hostile alien lifeform to haunt their naked butt, now, this is something, no? Bah!

Seems that sometimes a creative process and related buildup can collapse on itself, as King surely could not have been satisfied with the resultant psychic friends who can hear and see other people's thoughts and stuff, being invaded by an alien lifeform to deliver you initial extrras. Seeing how even THIS leads to nowhere acceptable, King unleashes military touches, then finally collides the military intervention with the psychic connection between the friends, so maybe, they together can put a stop to the alien menace! God, this is almost hopeless. The rather puzzling belief that others can see your thoughts can be a symptom of schizophrenia by the way, so King did not exactly released the Passat Wind from a very personal black hole, schizos already came up with THIS one. Though it's quite nice, and surely it seems very usable if you ever plan to make yourself crazy.



- MAN! This SCRIPT! It's HORRIBLE!
- 'tleast it's DEAD, though!

I have seen many King adaptations in which characters exhibited some personal, pathos-filled rituals as well, the writer with his snowballs and the tree form Misery and obviously, the dudes here with their beer drinking to the next 20 years do come to my mind. I got the feeling when King has nothing to tell neither to you or for his very own character creations, then he starts to throw around these - in my opinion - inept little vibes, like giving a personal ritual to THIS guy so he might be more interesting, let's just give some deficit for THIS dude, maybe some body-related handicap or emotional deficit. Let's make him blind, let's make him psycho, let's make him this, and that. King, I think, sometimes forgets how frightening normality can be, thus conceptualizes deficits as tools and things you absolutely MUST utilize to make a character suffer or just to make him interesting. Mind you I, these are the traits to give away King when he has no real stuff to tell, and also, these are just my impressions, though Jack Torrance just told me that he basically agrees.

There are times when these traits do not seem to influence the buildup in a significant manner, thus they end up as semi-trite accessories to give you the feeling that they are existent because they conceal the inherent emptiness which they truly live on and by. King either lies masterfully, or painfully clumsily, I think. The Dreamcather movie is a very nice, robust collection of his absolutely worst moments to date, thus it is also an adaptation that you do not want to miss. Make no mistake, please: I think it's OK to create crap if it is surrounded by quality on both sides. And I think Stephen King would agree. Though Jack Torrance tells me King would surely eradicate me butt. But Jack is nuts. Now Jack is in dilemma.



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