Trailer for upcoming Rocky sequel about Apollo Creed’s son:
Starring Michael B. Jordan and Sylvester Stallone reprising his Rocky Balboa role.
What say you 3.5 readers?
Bookshelf Battle
The only site where new bestsellers are forced to do battle for space on a nerd's bookshelf.
Daily Archives: July 1, 2015
Movie Review – Terminator Genisys (2015)
The Mother of Dragons forgets her turquoise dress! An elderly terminator that needs to be in bed by 4 pm!
Bookshelf Q. Battler here with a review of Terminator Genisys
OBLIGATORY SPOILER WARNING
At the outset, let me give this film a compliment (of sorts):
1) It’s the best Terminator film since T2: Judgement Day…
2) …but that’s not saying much because Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines and Terminator Salvation were a couple of hot steamy turd sandwiches served up on a pair of silver platters.
That’s not intended as an insult to this film. I just think it might be impossible to beat the moments of sheer terror and exhilarating action provided by the first two films in the franchise.
For a moment, that’s what I thought this film was trying to do. Hell, for a moment in the beginning, I thought it might even achieve that miraculous feat.
The film starts in 1984. Without letting the cat out of the bag, let’s just say that the original evil Arnold terminator from the first movie (i.e. a totally buff CGI version of Arnold in his prime) squares off against a nice Arnold terminator akin to John Connor’s protector in the second film. Meanwhile, a T1000, the shapeshifting liquid metal baddie from the second film jumps into the mix.
Sarah Connor (played by the Khaleesi..er I mean Emilia Clarke) and Kyle Reese (Sarah Connor’s human protector from the original film, played in this installment by Jai Courtney) round out the action.
In other words, it seemed like a great idea. Take the best parts of the best two films in the franchise and throw them together in one big mashup.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t last long as the story jumps to 2017, where Genisys, a new form of Skynet that takes advantage of our love/lust relationship with cell phones, social media, and non-stop connectivity, needs to be stopped.
Arnold plays “Pops,” another “good terminator,” this one having been sent back in time to be Sarah’s protector. We’re told that synthetic terminator skin ages over time, thus explaining why a man/machine looks like he’s ready to play a rousing game of bingo at the senior center. We (or at least I) go along with it to give the Governator another bite at the apple.
Why not? The guy did give us so many awesome action flicks when he was in his prime and oddly enough, the “old terminator” concept is touching at times.
I don’t want to give away who the ultimate baddie is in this film but suffice to say, I thought that part was dumb. Alas, I can’t tell you why without spilling the beans. Maybe after a week or two after folks have had the chance to see it I’ll talk about it.
Clarke provides a great performance in her first major role that doesn’t involve dragons. (Still, if there could be a Terminators vs. Dragons crossover that’d be epic).
That being said, she’s a far cry from actress Linda Hamilton, who as Sarah Connor in the first film, convinced me that she was a damsel in distress and in the second film, convinced me that she’d turned herself into a gung-ho no holds barred ready to rock robot killing machine.
Throughout the film, there’s a whole lot of “timeline stuff.” This happened in this timeline so that happened in that timeline. If that happens now will it happen later? Can people have two sets of memories, one from one timeline and one from another?
I don’t know. That part’s confusing. If you can figure it out, be my guest. I have a life, folks, so I don’t have time to sit down with a flowchart and a slide rule and figure out the various outcomes of what happens when fictional manbots do various things at different times.
Here’s a Pop Culture Mystery Question I need to ask Hatcher to track down:
1) If John Connor sends Kyle Reese back in time to save his mother, Sarah Connor (in the original 1984 version and in this one)
2) And John Connor is conceived as a byproduct of Sarah Connor and Kyle Reese boinking in the first film (I’m sorry, as a result of their love)
3) Then how is there a damn John Connor to send Kyle Reese back in time in the first place?
Thank God there’s a super sleuth in my employ to answer questions like these. This one’s been rattling around in my head for ages.
If you know the answer, help Hatcher out.
Overall, it is a solid summer blockbuster and it’s great to see aspects we loved from the first two films on the big screen again. It doesn’t rise up to the level of the first two, but it does surpass the third and fourth installments.
(The fourth installment being that one where Christian Bale played John Connor and famously shouted all kinds of abuse at a lightning guy for breaking his concentration.)
SIDENOTE – The CGI version of Arnold in his 1984 prime was pretty convincing. Will there ever be a time when movies could be made entirely using CGI characters? Do actors/actresses have something new to worry about?
STATUS: Shelf-worthy.
BQB and the Meaning of Life – Part 25 – Lloyd Bunson
PREVIOUSLY ON BOOKSHELF Q. BATTLER AND THE MEANING OF LIFE…
READ
AND NOW BOOKSHELF Q. BATTLER AND THE MEANING OF LIFE CONTINUES…
Sally’s web search resulted in a video of an old man in a tweed coat standing in his garage next to an ejector seat just like the one Vicky and I were plummeting to our imminent demises in.
Breakout Social Media Celebrity Lloyd Bunson, Host of “Lloyd Bunson’s Happy Fun Time Ejector Seat Channel.”
“Hello,” the old man said. “My name is Lloyd Bunson and welcome to Lloyd Bunson’s Happy Fun Time Ejector Seat Channel.”
“Wow,” Vicky said. “They have a You tube Channel for everything!”
“Over the next ninety minutes, I’m going to show you how to properly care for, maintain, weatherize, clean, and store your ejector seat,” Lloyd said. “Proper maintenance is the only way to ensure that your ejector seat will provide you with many years worth of flinging yourself out of perfectly good airplanes.”
“JUST GET TO THE PART ABOUT THE PARACHUTE OLD MAN!” I screamed.
“I’m sure you all have so many questions…”
“I can’t believe this has ten million hits,” Vicky said.
A flock of birds buzzed over our heads.
“And the big one I get all the time is, ‘Lloyd, how the heck do I deploy the parachute on my ejector seat?’”
“YES!” I shouted. “TELL US HOW LLOYD!”
“Simple,” Lloyd said. “First, reach your hand approximately one foot underneath the center of the seat like so…”
I copied what Lloyd was doing.
Vicky closed her eyes and began mumbling a prayer.
“…once you’re under there, you’ll want to feel around for a string.”
“Got it, Lloyd!” I said. “Now what? For Christ’s Sake, hurry up, man!”
“Go ahead and give that string a good old yank…”
I yanked the string. Nothing happened.
“Are you screwing with me, Lloyd?!!!”
“After you’ve yanked the string,” Lloyd explained. “Look to your left and you’ll find that by pulling the string, you’ve opened up a compartment containing a green button and a red button….”
“Push the green button,” I said, moving my finger over it.
“Whatever you do, DO NOT push the green button,” Lloyd said. “Push the red button.”
“Seriously?” I asked.
“Seriously,” Lloyd said. “Fun story, the engineer who designed these contraptions was totally color blind. So go ahead and hit that red button.”
I hit the red button. Nothing.
“You suck Lloyd!”
“Now you’ll find that on the right side of the seat, a blue lever has popped out,” Lloyd said.
Vicky looked at the side of her end of the seat.
“A blue lever!”
“Be sure to yank the lever up,” Lloyd said. “Because if you push it down, your seat will break apart and you will all surely die.”
“Why would they even build a feature like that into an ejector seat?” I asked.
“That’s what you get for buying a World War II surplus ejector seat that was built by Nazis,” Lloyd said.
Vicky yanked the lever up. A bright red parachute exploded out of the back of the seat. We immediately slowed down and breathed a sigh of relief.
“Damn Nazis!” I said.
“Now then,” Lloyd said. “Let’s talk about how to properly wax your ejector seat…”
Half of you looked up to see if there actually is a “Lloyd Bunson Happy Fun Time Ejector Seat Channel” didn’t you? Admit it.
BQB and the Meaning of Life is ejecting for now, but the story will continue after an all new episode of Pop Culture Mysteries!
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