You know when I first found out I had scoliosis, it was already pretty bad with a lower curve at 47 degrees and an upper curve at 35 degrees, and I was really looking forward to surgery because that would mean I wouldn't have to wear a back brace anymore, probably the most uncomfortable thing I've ever ever had to do my entire life. Although risks were there (Dr. Pence: This isn't a small surgery you know, this is a major surgery, so I have to tell you) of dying on the operating table, I was still eager to get it done because, supposedly, it was supposed to fix me. Side effects of surgery? Loss of 30% of flexibility. All right, I can live with that, what choice did I have really?
Even after surgery, I was eager to mature to the age that my skeleton would stop growing so my bones would completely ossify and the danger of my upper curve worsening to the point of needing surgery would end. What I didn't anticipate was that, although I was not in danger of dying a horrible death at 40 from my scoliosis progressing beyond 200 degrees and literally breaking my back and crushing my internal organs, that after ossification, shit hurts all the time now. Things that normal people would consider simple like standing up for longer than 5 minutes, sitting down in a chair, getting up from lying down on the ground, these all fucking hurt a lot. Everyday I get funny looks and comments when I wince when I sit down. Even while sitting in a chair, after a while, when I shift or stretch, my bones pop and grind against each other, it's really quite disconcerting. I can't even really lean back in a hard backed chair; the right side of my back protrudes like 4-5 inches further than the left side. It's hard to concentrate on things when it hurts to sit for longer than 10 min. as we all know text books and articles take a lot longer than that read.
It's been getting worse the past couple years I suppose; I used to be able to sleep like 12-14 hours at a time without waking up. Now, I'm up 4-5 times a night for no apparent reason. Sleeping and then just wake up, sometimes my back hurts, other times I'm just awake. Getting special beds and shit like that don't seem to help really. It's not that I'm not tired, I'm exhausted all day, every day. If this is how it is and I'm only 25, only 12 years after surgery, what the fuck is going to be like when I'm 40? 50? I don't anticipate living past 60, I can't imagine a body taking this kind of structural punishment without it taking its toll in some way.
Damn you John Woo, Gan Ning doesn't die at Chi Bi. That is all I have to say about Red Cliff's 5th hour.
So...Knowing. The idea was good, it really was. There was some good thriller/mystery in there and it was pretty good. Then...God I don't know, makers of the movie loved Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull too much or something and botched the ending. It had so much potential but then it was lost by the end.
Yes Man. I expected it being kinda like Liar, Liar, the idea was kinda the same right? Jim Carrey, he can only say yes or else bad things will happen to him. I'll be honest here, if the movie didn't have Jim Carrey in it, I think it would've been a lot better. The premise was good, the plotline was really good. But some of the charm was lost with Jim Carrey trying to be serious, and then of course, like every movie he's in, he makes crazy faces and does crazy things. Not really appropriate for this movie I don't think but it's in there anyway. A good movie...if there was another actor playing lead.
Crank: High Voltage Uh...yeah SADLY the best movie here out of this lot. Although, like the first one, maybe you should file it under "comedy" as opposed to "action". Sure there's a lot of action, but all of it is SO ridiculous it's hilarious. The obligatory public sex scene with Amy Smart like in the first one is in there too, and just as funny as chinatown, maybe even better since now they had a *real* audience.
oh dang hard choice... Jennifer Morrison vs. Yvonne Strahovski.
I must say that it's not really fair, they chose a somewhat unflattering picture of Jennifer Morrison what with the deep wrinkles and the tired, dirty blonde hair whereas Yvonne Strahovski's picture is like...I don't know what the hell they did to that picture but it's bright and lively in comparison. Sadly I must say Jennifer Morrison will probably lose, but she was a lot more attractive in House, seasons 1-3 than Yvonne was in Chuck when her hair always looks kinda weird when she ties it back.
I find it funny that this virtually unheard of actress Yvonne is pretty much dominating this blonde vs. blonde competition. Look at the % of win, Jennifer Morrison just BARELY edged out her competition in the semi finals but dannnng look at Yvonne 97% 73% 94%. NOT EVEN CLOSE.
So I finished watching Red Cliff. The last 1/4 of the movie is pretty much an epic battle scene depicting (surprise!) the Battle of Red Cliff. All of the necessary components are there - the wind changing directions, massive fire attack on Cao Cao's navy chained together, but, although John Woo does follow some of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms story lines, he definitely makes up a lot of other drivel to take up screen time. Anyway, a decent movie if you're a fan of ROTK or just Chinese made Chinese movies.
I Love You, Man - I don't know what it is about Paul Rudd that screams to me "mediocre movie" but there it is. It was enjoyable, somewhat, but for a movie meant to be a comedy, there were very few actual funny parts in my opinion. The premise was good, and the plot workable but there was just something missing.
Resident Evil 4: Degeneration Yeah...don't watch this. It got higher than expected reviews, but really. Really...yeah.
Bolt Sadly, I enjoyed watching this more than all the other movies in this post. Revolving around a dog who thinks he has superpowers slowly learning that...he doesn't, and learning how to be a real dog. Just a lot of fun, there's soul searching, but nothing too deep. Surprisingly good for a Disney movie.
Crank So...I guess this is supposed to be an action movie, but I found it to be hilarious. Don't get me wrong, there's plenty of action, I mean it's based on a guy who's been injected with a poison that will basically cause a coma and death if his heart rate drops so you can imagine all the ways you could get your heart rate up right? Well, add in he's trying to find the guy who poisoned him and kill him and naturally having a limited time frame. First he just berserks around by running, then he's driving fast, then he does couple grams of coke, then he injects himself with 100 cc's of epinephrine (yeah...). This is funny enough in its own right since, at this point, he's running around town with an unclosed hospital gown on. Oh, right, then he tries to save his g/f but, oh noes his heart rate is dropping. The cure! Sex in the middle of Chinatown. Old ladies cheering him on, tour bus of people taking pictures etc. Just hilarious.
So I've been doing a major movie collection refresh and I thought I'd recommend some with my own reviews. Let me first let me get a disclaimer here... the way I got new movies this time around, I got all the movies that you're like "well...i kinda watch it but i don't really want to pay 10 bucks to go watch". Then, afterwards, I went to IMDB and went down the most popular movies by year and picked up what I didn't have and had ehhh decent ratings, like 6.5 + and here's what I got. There may be some errr...you know questionables when you read the title, but really they're actually pretty good movies!
So! onward! from older to newer in the order I watched them.
The Illusionist - Well hell this came out the same time as The Prestige but it revolves around love as opposed to rivalry and I didn't watch it until much much later. Some nice sleight of hand and a good story with a twist. I would say this movie is built more on trickery than it was on stage performer magic. A solid movie, though after watching it once and knowing the resolution, I probably won't watch this again.
Taken - So this revolves around a naive and...really quite annoying spoiled American "teenager" getting swept into the European sex slave trade when she visits France with her "knowlegeable" friend. Well, all right, but did I mention her dad is QUI GON FUCKING GIN and, perhaps more pertinant to this movie, he's ex-CIA...? or...something FBI? I don't remember it's not important suffice to say that he's really really good at hand to hand. The entire movie, pretty much, is rampaging through Paris trying to find his daughter and racks up an impressive kill list, some as mundane as getting punched or something, whereas others are a lot more interesting (PORTHOLE SURPRISE!). Also, you know that last guy is like the boss of the level and fights better than all his comrades put together. 'cause you know, he's the last guy.
Kingdom of Heaven - Hey look Orlando Bloom can actually weild a sword and isn't always shooting arrows...like...you know, in Troy and some other movies. *cough* Well this movie is based on the 12th century crusades. I'm not a history buff on this time period so I don't know if it's historically accurate, but if you like the palace intrigue kinda like in Gladiator, and the giant epic battle type things, kinda like in Troy, well you just might enjoy this movie. I didn't really like it that much, it was watchable, but not really what I wanted in a movie. I would put it around the level of Troy, maybe a step or two above. This is one of those movies you'd watch at least once to say you've seen it, but I don't think I'd sit down and watch it again.
Slumdog Millionaire - Well, I actually got this a while ago but I didn't say anything about it. I must say that when it won 11 oscars or whatever, I had a little bit more motivation to watch it and, well yeah I guess those awards were all well deserved. The music was especially memorable I thought, a little jarring but it sticks in your mind. Contrary to what the previews showed, this movie actually tells the story of the main character and explains through his life events how he knows the answers to all of the questions in the Indian versions of who wants to be a millionaire. A solid movie with the obligatory love story to hold it all together.
Eagle Eye - This was actually suggested to me by a co-worker and I guess it was pretty good. I found it too "I, Robot" (the movie not the book) at the end but I guess getting there was just a lot of action and instruction following a-la Matrix. It's a pretty good mindless summer flick I guess you could say. I probably wouldn't watch it again.
Zodiac - This tells the (modified true) story of the Zodiac killer. You get pretty caught up in the story, however, it heavily leans on the book and is biased towards who the author thought was the truth. There are mentions of other lines of investigation but they never get resolved. This was almost like a thriller, it makes you anxious to watch it, even though you know the main character isn't going to be killed (he's still alive today).
Underworld 3 - Rise of the Lycans This is the prequel to Underworld and shows what happened to Lucian that pissed him off so much. The first movie was definitely 100x better than this prequel, but it did its job in story telling and, of course tight leather wearing and mindless violence. Sadly I'm much more likely to watch this movie when I want something mindless to watch than some of the other ones on this list.
The Da Vinci Code I don't really know why this had such a low rating on IMDB, maybe because because people have too strong religious views, but I thought the mystery surrounding this was outstanding and there were multiple twists that you...may not expect. I thought, besides the religious element injected in, very much like the National Treasure movies, of the main characters being pursued in someway and following clues and tenuous leaps of logic to arrive at their destination. Also, I might add that Harry said he'd do the chick in this movie. I have to admit she's...pretty. yeah.
Angels & Demons Sequel to Da Vinci Code (the movie). Again, religious people might have some beef with this movie, especially with cardinals getting kidnapped and murdered in hideous fashion, but hey, clue following, twists and everything. Very much like Da Vinci Code and worth watching.
Watchmen Maybe it was because I never heard of the graphic novel/comics etc. that I didn't really enjoy this movie. It was a superhero movie, okay, but it didn't have the familiarity of the X-Men, Batman, Spiderman etc. movies and was generally much much darker. Not really what I was looking for in a superhero movie.
X-Men Origins: Wolverine I don't know why so many people didn't enjoy this movie. All right granted, it raised more questions and inconsistencies than it answered but generally, it was a lot easier to watch than Watchmen. There were a lot of nods to the X-Men universe but I don't think it's as canonical as it could have been.
Ice Age 3 - Dawn of the Dinosaurs All right... I don't really understand why it's called "Dawn of the Dinosaurs" when they went "extinct" in the previous movies... but anyway, Scrat is still the best part of the movie, though Sid has some pretty good parts as well. As with the previous two, I didn't really like the Manny storyline but I suppose that's personal preference. Cute movie, fun to watch. Scrat is hilarious.
Zack and Miri Make a Porno Premise was good, and really a hilarious movie, though, as usual, I thought the love story could've been downplayed, although that's what caused most of the conflict throughout the movie. Still, although you'd think this would be a raunchy movie, it really isn't, it would fall squarely in the comedy category in my book. A solid movie.
17 Again Hey, don't judge, it had high ratings so I got it. Actually I was pretty surprised how not-bad this movie was compared to what I expected. Yeah, it's a soul searching movie, and yeah, there's a sappy love story. But hahaha oh man so many WRONG WRONG WRONG situations cropping up between daughter and father... SO WRONG and yet so hilarious. The middle ~hour 15 minutes good! The last 10 min. /puke sappy love story etc.
Lesbian Vampire Killers I know what you're thinking when you read that title, but honestly, it's not what you think! This, again, falls squarely in the "comedy" category. Is it a parody, is it comedy? can't tell, though it REALLY does not take itself seriously. There are a lot of small gags throughout the whole movie and a lot of the humor is sarcastic in nature. Really worth the 90 minutes or whatever this movie is. Also it has REALLY GOOD (read: hilariously bad) special effects. I'm not sure what the budget was for this movie, but the way it was presented was well done.
Disturbia I thought this movie looked really lame when I watched the previews, but the set up was great, and most of the movie was pretty good. It helped that the chick is a slammin' hottie, except, maybe her face not as much, it's a little weird, but I guess the rest of her is uhhh um... what was I saying? Oh yes, the movie was pretty good, the bumbling that comes with every Shia LeBouf movie is there and the fast talking is in there too.
Red Cliff This is a chinese-made movie, directed by John Woo. Set during the 3 kingdoms period (DYNASTY WARRIORS YEAHHH) this covers the events around Chang Ban and Chi Bi roughly 208-212 AD in China after the fall of the Han Dynasty. Yes, there's a lot of kookie ancient chinese stuff, but there's plenty of pretty good action (John Woo). It doesn't quite follow the Romance of the Three Kingdoms accepted story line, and drags out pretty long. I got kinda tired of watching it after 3 hours, and there was STILL YET MORE. I'll finish watching it at some point, but so far it's pretty good. Heh...Gan Ning uses a huge meat cleaver as his weapon like in the Dynasty Warriors games. Freakin awesome.
I've picked up I Love You, Man, but I haven't watched it yet, I guess I'll write about it when I do.
