Robocop - Prime Directives - Meltdown (2001) Review

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(More customer reviews)In contrast to many other reviewers, I happen to think R2 has an astonishingly inventive script brimming with daring, dark satire. The satire is so dark however, that it challenges a viewer not to be merely "entertained", but enter into a dialogue with the film. I contend that R2 is in the tradition of such apocpalyptic satirical art as CLOCKWORK ORANGE and NAKED LUNCH which serve to warn humankind just where in hell its crazed heart may lead.
Unlike most mainstream Hollywood films, R2 is deeply critical of humanity and its resulting civilization -- starting with the harsh market-driven economy of winners and losers (it is no coincidence that both the drug trade and OCP bow to the same economic models). By depicting a world of such dire human/social affliction coupled with all the high-tech tools required to increase its profit (and anguish), R2 challenges the viewer to separate from this "humanity". Like the best satire, R2 exists to crack our rose-colored glasses, bloody our noses, and tell us what's wrong, so there is precious little "good" to root for in either old or new Detroit. What's at stake in R2 is simply keeping the flood of evil from drowning everything all at once.
The film's sharp satirical touches include: expanding the Reagan-era "privatizing" mania to that of OCP "owning" Detroit as a merciless send-up of free market philosophy; the 12-year old drug kingpin just a few tweaks from today's gun-toting teenaged gangbangers as a potent symbol for a suicidal civilization's nihilistic future; the telethon to "save" Detroit as a chilling parody of the fiscal/civil tensions between Democracy and Capitalism (in which, tellingly, the 12-year old drug dealer purchases Detroit's "freedom"); the designer drug, Nuke, as the corrupted escape-valve for society's traumatized, post-Ritalin citizens (and just wait until human genome research trickles down to the greed of the street); the domestication of Robocop into a platitude-whining ninny as a ridicule of pie-in-the-sky suburban values failing in a battlezone of urban realities (which the suburbanites' defection from the inner-city helped to create); and the Robocop 2 cyborg who sports a criminal mind determined as the best fit for our high-tech future. These and other barbs all serve to criticize society's faith that higher and higher technology will save us from human folly instead of high-tech being correctly seen as just the latest edition of that same human folly.
Yes, the script may superficially suffer from its demanding ambitions with perhaps one-too-many a sub-plot (screenwriter Frank Miller's graphic novel background pushes the envelope here), but R2's postcards-from-hell humor and prescient social criticism are the diamonds wrought from such risk. R2 is a wake-up call for a society increasingly divorced from nature: he who lives like a machine will die like a machine.

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Ice Twisters (2009) Review

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(More customer reviews)This SyFy Channel original film is neither outstanding nor awful; it's about what you'd expect for a movie made for television.
Since Amazon doesn't offer a synopsis, here's the rundown: The Federal Science Foundation has developed a means for creating storms, only their first major experiment goes wrong; the result are tornados that freeze everything in their path. Enter Charlie Price (played by Mark Moses of Mad Men and Desperate Housewives), a former scientist turned fiction writer, whose novels generally involve weather disasters. Price finds himself pitting his scientific and writing knowledge against an impending weather nightmare that threatens nearby cities.
The good news is that the majority of the cast are heavily experienced in television, so the acting is decent compared to most straight to video movies. Charlie Price's dry humor keeps the dialogue moving, though not especially interesting. The movie also deals with a competitive dynamic between Price and a younger scientist, though a subplot introduced between them is never returned to by the film's end.
While the movie's concept is somewhat original, the film overall is average in every respect. If you're a fan of science fiction movies, this would make for an adequate rental on a slow afternoon. I can't see anyone actually buying the DVD, though, unless they're a big fan of Mark Moses.

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Frank Herbert's Dune (TV Miniseries) (2000) Review

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(More customer reviews)After seeing this miniseries and the original David Lynch theatrical release, I felt compelled to read the book and settle some plot inconsistencies (i.e. where did the weirding weapons go and where the heck was Duncan Idaho really supposed to die? In the Atreides compound during the initial Harkonnen attack or blown to bits by Harkonnen patrols in the desert spiriting Paul and his mother to safety?). The Sci-Fi series got it right.
I did not find Allec Newman annoying as some people did. Sure, he was wooden, but Paul was schooled in the controlling of his own emotions by his mother so that they did not betray him. After the Harkonnen attack his ruthless, unemotional behavior became more pronounced as he was immersed in the grim Fremen culture.
In terms of following the original story, the Sci-Fi Channel series is superior to Lynch's version. Sure, nobody seems to be able to get the fact that Paul Atreides is supposed to be 14-15 when the story starts and that he is described as being much darker complected than either actor who has played him in the past, but things actually happened in the sequence they were supposed to in the miniseries. People die where they are supposed to and events take place in the proper sequence.
Another nice element of the miniseries was the use of knives. Everybody has knives in the miniseries, just like in the book, where knives play an important part of Fremen culture. In the miniseries, characters are more likely to duke it out up close with knives than shoot blasts from weirding modules (which aren't even in the book).
Karel Dobry's Dr. Kynes and P.H. Moriarty's Gurney Halleck (characters who, despite their importance to Herbert's original story, were glossed over in Lynch's version of "Dune") are both given the attention they deserve in the miniseries. I thought both actors did well, as did the actor who played Stilgar (Uwe Ochsenknecht). I liked both Ochsenknecht and Dobry's quiet, understated menace. Despite their lack of emotion and stoic demeanor, you could instantly recognize them as the most dangerous men in the room. In the miniseries Gurney Halleck looks and feels like the battle-hardened ex-slave who would die for his Duke. If anything, Patrick Stewart's portrayal in the movie (when his character was on screen) was too "clean" to be Gurney Halleck.
Hey, Raban even had some dialogue in the miniseries (like he did in the book) instead of wandering around and giggling perversely while eating some indescribable meat product like he did in Lynch's movie. Feyd even gets to do things in the miniseries besides offering Sting's characteristic leer of the Lynch interpretation. Sure, his clothes stunk in the miniseries, but he was shown as being much more dangerous (both physically and mentally) in the miniseries than Sting was in the movie version. Stepping out of a steam-bath and cocking on eyebrow on cue don't concern me as much as the man who looks harmless and has terrible fashion sense, but is a cold-blooded killer. Ian McNiece surprised me as Baron Harknonnen, since I'm used to him in more effeminate, comedic roles. I thought he did a fine job as the Baron, mixing the vicious with the pathetic (now if only I hadn't seen quite so much of him wearing nothing but his suspensor harness...).
The miniseries does have its weaknesses. Once again, the actor who played Yueh fell short. I never once saw the tattoo Yueh had on his forehead that signified his imperial conditioning. How many times is this blasted tattoo mentioned in the book? William Hurt has as much intensity as a corpse. I do think that Lynch's movie made the Bene Gesserit more menacing with their bald heads and black gowns. The Bene Gesserit attire of the miniseries was laughable. In fact, hats were pretty terrible throughout the series. I also like Lynch's interpretation of guild navigators and Harkonnen "garbage bags with green eyeholes" shock troops. However, other visual elements, like the stillsuits (the primary wardrobe of the second half of the story) and vehicles, are more accurate in the Sci-Fi miniseries.
Is it perfect? No. Was it enough to cause me to buy a copy of the book to find out if they did a better/worse job? Yes. Is it more faithful to the original story? Yes.

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Fringe: The Complete Second Season (2009) Review

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(More customer reviews)This review covers my sentiments for SEASON 1 and SEASON 2. Its a good series in season 1 from pilot to episode 6 or 7......and then STRAP YOURSELF IN cuz its going to get way way way better from that point on.
Think LOST in SEASON 1. Thats Fringe. nothing to do with the story lines But with the excitement and anticipation each episode brings. Well mostly each episode. Yes sometimes they'll do an episode that doesnt advance the story line of the SERIES - which drives me nuts btw - but even in those few episodes, the story you will see in that episode will be greatly entertaining and leave you wanting more.
DO NOT start watching this at 11pm if you have an early morning. There is no way you will start and not watch at least three episodes. maybe if you are strong willed you might be able to just watch one or two among the first 6 episodes of season 1. But DO NOT TRY it with starting your viewing late in the evening with an episode that is after 6 of season 1. If you do that, I promise You WILL BE WATCHING 5 episodes back to back before you know it.
You have been warned...........

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From J.J. Abrams (Lost), Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci –the team behind Star Trek and Alias –and executive producers Jeff Pinkner, J.H. Wyman and Bryan Burk, Fringe returns for a second thrilling season and continues to explore the unexplained phenomena and terrifying occurrences linked throughout the world – known simply as "The Pattern" – in pursuit of a larger, more shocking truth. Set in Boston, the FBI's Fringe Division formed when Special Agent Olivia Dunham (Anna Torv) enlisted the help of institutionalized "fringe" scientist Walter Bishop (John Noble) and his son, Peter (Joshua Jackson), to save her partner and lover from a mind-bending death. Through unconventional and unorthodox methods, the Fringe team imagines and tests the impossibilities while investigating unbelievable events, macabre crimes and mystifying cases involving teleportation, reanimation, genetic mutation, precognition, artificial intelligence and other fantastical theories. When the unimaginable happens, it's their job to stop it.

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FlashForward: Season One Pt.1 (2009) Review

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(More customer reviews)So, one reads all the time about authors who have had their work adapted by Hollywood complaining about what a lousy job was done. Well, as the author of the novel Flashforward upon which this TV series is based, let me say that this is NOT one of those cases. Yes, they changed things, but I was consulted by Executive Producer David S. Goyer and Brannon Braga about the changes even before they had secured rights to my book, I served as consultant on every episode (and wrote the 19th episode, "Course Correction"), and I loved the series. The cast was phenomenal, the scripts were mostly excellent, and the whole thing looked fabulous. So many good episodes, but I suppose my favorites are "No More Good Days," "Scary Monsters and Super Creeps," "The Gift," and "The Garden of Forking Paths." Oh, and we got to pull off a television first: after years of Toronto masquerading as Los Angeles, L.A. got to stand in for T.O. in the episode "Revelation Zero." How cool is that?

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Experience the nonstop action, excitement, and drama of the first ten episodes of the critically-acclaimed FlashForward and get set for television's best new show (Mark A. Perigard, Boston Herald) to grab hold of you from its first explosive moment. Chaos reigns ater a mysterious event causes everyone in the world to lose consciousness at exactly the same time. Was it an act of nature or something far more sinister? During the global blackout, every man, woman and child was given a glimpse of his or her life six months in the future. One elite law enforcement team jumps into the investigation, attempting to solve the mystery, as the world's population wrestles with the choice of whether to embrace the fate they've seen or fight to change the future. Relive every brilliant twist of FlashForward's first ten episodes, and prepare yourself for what's to come in the second half of Season One. Who is D. Gibbons? Who is the shadowy figure unaffected by the blackout? And what's next for your favorite characters as their day of reckoning approaches? Plus, dig even deeper with never before seen bonus features and an exclusive sneak peek at the next chapter, only available on DVD.

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