Starship Troopers 3: Marauder

The first Starship Troopers was pretty much perfect with stunning action sequences, gratuitous shower scenes and biting and frequently hilarious political satire.  The second one could not afford any great or even reasonably decent action sequences, or apparently any good writers, so we really got a crappy horror movie that had little to do with the universe set up in the first movie.  The third movie still didn’t have the budget of the first, but obviously way more than the second, as the producer and writer of the first one are back, as well as one of the stars.  And since they still can’t afford the effects budget for lavish battle sequences of the first, they emphasize the other kick ass part, all the craziness of life in the military controlled fascist future.  They have loads of those “Do You Want To Know More?” bits.  This movie was surprisingly a lot of fun, one of the best straight to DVD movies I have seen all year, and a worthy sequel of the first, if at a fourth of the budget.

Doomsday

 First, the guy directing these rip off scenes does so with a good budget and great skill.  Secondly, these scenes are so clearly a homage to the originals and there are so many of them that it is more of a love letter than anything else.  Thirdly, I loves me all of those movies, so why wouldn’t I like to see the best parts of them all together?  Also, Rhona Mitra is the bad ass heroine, and is tougher than any action woman since Ripley.  She gets the crap beaten out of her and still comes out on top and with all of her clothes on. 

This movie is some good fun.  Half of Scotland are now punk rocker cannibals with crazy tattoos and piercing and driving around in modded up cars covered in scrap metal armor while the other half are living like they are in Braveheart.  See, I always assumed Scotland was like this before the end of civilization.

North Country

During the recent Democratic primary, a lot of people talked about how sexism is more acceptable than racism in today’s society.  Being a white (well, olive skinned) male, I don’t experience it that much, but if you think about it, it is true.  Also, racism being a bigger deal, we are more used to it, everybody has seen movies dealing with slavery or the South during the Civil Rights era; we kind of know what to expect.

All of which is a lead up to saying that this movie deals with sexism and sexual harassment in and out of the work place in the US in the 80’s and it is brutal.  Some of the things that happened in this movie were so mean, so degrading that I felt as if the breath was sucked out of my lungs.  I actually had to pause the movie just to calm down during this.  While there is a scene of an actual assault and of a rape, these don’t take up that much time and are not actually as intense as the casual degradation and animosity shown to the women just trying to work and survive in the coal mines in this movie.  The treatment they receive is constant and hate filled and really shows up throughout their lives, in and outside of work.  Again, this isn’t the 1800s or Saudi Arabia or Somalia, this is the late 80s and in Wisconsin.  This is certainly no date movie, but is a definite eye opener to show the plight of some women and how bad things were and likely still are in many places.

London Bridges

I was at somewhat of a disadvantage with this book, as almost all of the characters are returning, and is apparently the 10^th novel involving this protagonist.  However, that really didn’t impact the problem I had with this book.  A master terrorist hooks up with a master serial killer to dumfound a detective and hold the world at ransom.  Not a bad idea, but really this book is something of a pre-9/11 holdover.  The two main criminals get away with a ridiculous number of feats and crimes and acts of terrorism.  They have basically unlimited resources and contacts and nobody is safe from them.  It gets a bit ridiculous after a while.  I mean, from the news we know how hard it is to coordinate a single terrorist attack, not to mention multiples in weeks around the world, leaving no witnesses, killing everybody involved, then killing your enemy’s families and on and on and never getting caught, never leaving clues.  The whole book is basically a super villain cackling at us mere mortals; the only time the good guys ever get ahead is through sheer luck or when it is part of the bad guy’s plan.

Southland Tales

Hey, remember how in Donnie Darko (the same guy wrote/directed this one) all the crazy and mysterious stuff that was going on made you more curious as to what was going on and even if you didn’t get it it was ok, because you cared about the characters and the setting was compelling?  Well this movie is full of cryptic remarks and mysteries and actors I like and I found it dull and annoying.  There are 2 graphic novels preceding this and a 5 minute voice over trying to explain the world this takes place in and I have no idea what is supposed to be happening or why.  Or why I should care.  There is so much promise here, so many weird things going on, it is not worth it at all.

Get Smart

Man, I loves me some Steve Carrell, but the concept from the original tv show that didn’t transfer was that Maxwell Smart only solved the mysteries or crimes or whatever through luck and fumbling.  In the movie, Smart is actually really a really great agent, just a little un-experienced.  Also, the chick falls for him like straight away.  Steve Carrell doesn’t have one real challenge in the whole movie.