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I still think that Nailing Your Wife is the best one so far, but this one might be a close second.

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Remake Grudge Match!

 

You may remember that a couple of weeks ago, I talked about Quarantine.  You may also remember that I absolutely loved it. It was scary, the pacing was spot on and had to assume that, as remakes go, it was one of the best.

Well, I finally got to see [REC]. The Spanish original that Quarantine was based on. I had said

This is one remake that I have to assume that they got absolutely right.

And I was right. They nailed the remake. Which got me to thinking, is this going to be another Ringu/The Ring. One of those things where, since both are so good, people tend to prefer the one that they saw first? And, I could see that being the case. However, I firmly believe that Quarantine improved on what was already a great movie in [REC]. Quarantine took a little more time to build up. Which, isn't saying much. [REC] comes in at a brisk 75 minutes, and Quarantine is only 89. Both are pretty short movies that move at a good pace. Quarantine, however, spends that extra time building tension in and around the apartment complex, as well as giving you just a little bit more of the characters. Those 14 extra minutes are well spent in that regard.

[REC] is also much shakier. The camera is constantly moving, regardless of what's going on. I think the only time it stopped moving is when it gets set down. Quarantine keeps the shaky cam, but there are moments when it's steady. I think that at those times, such as when the fireman falls from the floor above, has greater impact.

Quarantine though, has an ending that makes a little more sense. That may have more to do with my own, American, sensibilities though. The quasi-religious ending of [REC] just doesn't feel as plausible as the chemical terrorism explanation in Quarantine.

I will say that the 'creature',  for lack of a better term, at the end of [REC] is MUCH creepier looking. It's just plain unsettling. And, I will say that I liked Manuela Velasco a bit more than Jennifer Carpenter.

Like I've said, Quarantine, got it right. It took the story, kept all the great stuff and then improved upon it, making a tight, taut movie that much better without losing a bit of the soul of the orginal.

All I wanted was to see the helicopter destroyed

Do you know why I grabbed Asylum's Supercroc at the video store? No, of course you don't. I haven't told you that. It's certainly not based on Asylum's track record.  I still remember watching Monster. So, that wasn't it. The title itself is enough to pique my interest. It's enough to raise at least one of my eyebrows There's a certain imageto it. The title, Supercroc, is enough to get me to look at the box. It' the back cover, however, that sold me. 

I never realized it before, but in that moment, standing there at the video store, I knew, without a doubt, that all my life I'd wanted nothing more than to see a giant crocodile LEAP from the water and envelop a helicopter in it's massive jaws.

It's not as exciting as the cover would have you believe. The attacks are actually all pretty blurry. The supercroc is mostly blurry when it appears. It must just be cheaper.

It's a crocodile that the movie's scientist claims could eat a T-rex. A T-rex! Think about that! That's just SO cool. Of course that's the only thing that they say in their little 'war room' that isn't complete gobbledygook.

Look, you and I both know that this is not a good movie. It filled with plot holes, cliches, bad acting and worse effects. No, you know what, the effects are actually much better than most of the acting. I don't care though. I had fun with it. I want to be in an Asylum movie. I really really do. Is there anyone out there who can help me with this? I don't even want to speak in it, I just want to be a part of a movie like this. That's my new dream. 

You know what this movie needed? A couple of knocked down buildings. Just let the supercroc take out a building or two with it's tail! It would have been perfect. Considering that the supercroc takes out a helicopter and an SUV with no real difficulty, a building would have helped demonstrate it's destructive effectiveness. Also, it would have been really sweet.

An Open Letter To SyFy

This isn't what I originally planned to post here today. However, my stellar review of SuperCroc will just have to wait until later in the week. I have another bandwagon to jump on.

Dear SciFi Channel,

Can I still call you that? Is that ok right now? I'm not sure how official the name change is yet. Have you gone before the judge yet? I've seen everyone talking about it, so that much be like putting an anouncement in the newspaper. I guess that means it's time to give up the ghost and start calling you SyFy, huh?

Well, SyFy, I have to tell you, I'm pretty disapointed in your behavior. Changing your name to a silly spelling seems like the kind of thing you do in junior high to make yourself stand out and feel special. It doesn't REALLY change anything though, does it? I mean, you aren't exactly changing your programming, are you? Are you going to give up on SciFi Saturday (The most dangerous night on tv!)? I mean, I really hope you won't stop showing top quality movies like Dark Storm and Raptor Island. I'm not being sacracastic here. I love these movies. I can't count how many Saturday nights I've spent watching your movies and drinking some beers. It's been a lot of fun.

You said that changing the name makes you cooler and hipper. SyFy.

“The name Sci Fi has been associated with geeks and dysfunctional, antisocial boys in their basements with video games and stuff like that, as opposed to the general public and the female audience in particular,” said TV historian Tim Brooks, who helped launch Sci Fi Channel when he worked at USA Network.

Um...that's not a real nice thing to say about a large portion of your audience. It doesn't exactly make me feel all warm and fuzzy about your network, dude. And besides, you can't manufacture cool.

"When we tested this new name, the thing that we got back from our 18-to-34 techno-savvy crowd, which is quite a lot of our audience, is actually this is how you'd text it. It made us feel much cooler, much more cutting-edge, much more hip, which was kind of bang-on what we wanted to achieve communication-wise."

You can try, I guess. Don't you remember what made you special though? You weren't cool. Who the hell wants to watch 4 straight hours of Enterprise?

"Syfy allows us to build on our 16-year heritage of success with a new brand built on the power that fuels our genre: the imagination. Syfy ushers in a new era of unlimited imagination, exceptional experiences and greater entertainment that paves the way for us to truly become a global lifestyle brand."

So, how does ECW Wrestling fit into that? Let's be honest though. This should come as no surprise. You've basically been shitting on fans of science fiction for years. Terrible movies, bad series' and a lack of understanding what science fiction even entails. Few have done more to make science fiction unappealing to the masses than the SciFi Channel.

Space ships, aliens, time travel, robots, these are all components of science fiction, but it can be so much more than that.There is more to science fiction than Star Trek, The X-Files and Star Wars. Rather than being a network cobbled together with the scraps no one else wants to bother with, you could have built something bigger. How many shows that couldn't work on network TV could have found new life on your network? A show like Firefly would have been perfect. It would have gotten better ratings on a network that nurtured quality science fiction shows for a built in audience than one that was trying to appeal to everyone. You missed that boat so many times that I actually wonder how you managed to succeed with Battlestar Galactica. No, rather than try to create something great, you let yourself whither away in the dark recesses of basic cable.

Rather than trying to be a healthy meal, so to speak, you've striven to be the junk food network. You could be showing movies like Children of Men or Sunshine or Blindness (okay, this is still awfully new and probably a bad example) instead of I Am Omega and Anonymous Rex and SS Doomtrooper. Instead of looking at your audience and seeing a group that wanted you to succeed, you saw a group holding you back.

Eventually, most people realize that the grass isn't always greener on the other side. I don't know that your audience will abandon you because of the name change. I think most of us are accustomed to being maligned and abused. You run the risk, though, of becoming a joke. More so than your movies already make you. And if those 'antisocial boys in their basements' abandon you...well, I wouldn't expect an influx of new viewers to show up to replace them.

Sincerly,
dreamrot
$7 Popcorn

Oh, I'll show you what bad CGI REALLY is!

Last week, Total Film posted an article on the 20 Worst Movie CGI Moments. And, in looking through the list...I have to wonder if they really know what bad CGI is.




Yes, Sam Jackson's death in Deep Blue Sea is horrific (horrifically AWESOME!). With that and Shark Attack 3 to open things up, I had a feeling that they might be onto something fun. Then I read on...and realized that whoever wrote this article has never watched the SciFi Channel on a Saturday night (though I'm not sure if that says more about me or Chris Hicks).

It's one thing if you want to stick to scenes in big budget movies like Watchmen or Transformers and that sort of movie. That's a whole different discussion. But when you start off by mentioning a couple of low budget shark movies, well, they just can't compete. A movie like The Matrix has a lot more money to work with than the likes of Shark Attack 3. It's not a level playing field. And it's unfair to lump them into the same category.

Besides...if you want to talk about bad CGI? Let's start by taking a look at something like Attack of the Sabertooth.







That's from the friggin movie! A movie like Transformers puts more effort into an animatic!

And you want to talk about surfing? Die Another Day has not-a-goram-thing on Escape From L.A.

Do you really think that any thing about this looks better than what the accomplished in Die Another Day? Come on, dude!

Or, let's look at Event Horizon:

Do you really think that the opening sequence full of shitty looking floating debris looks better than anything in Lord of the Rings? And don't even get me started on Johnny Mnemonic or Lawnmower Man and their all CGI depictions of the interweb.

And let's be fucking honest, the only reason the effects looked bad in King Kong was because of how much Peter Jackson and Weta Workshop accomplished on LotR. Sure, the dinosaurs weren't the best CGI effects, but the damn monkey looked amazing.

The Wachowskis, the Bays, the Bruckheimers in this world will never put out the kind of movies that are chock full of bad effects and pure awesome-osity that the Lions Gates, Nu Images and Asylums will.
It's just a different mentality.

And not just among the film makers. As a viewer, I go into something like The Matrix with certain expectations. I expect to see something to write home about. When I pop in something like Raging Sharks, I expect to get a good chuckle and maybe be entertained for a few minutes. So, when I see a goofy alien, or a bad CGI shark, I laugh. I make fun of it. And while I may expect it to be bad, that doesn't mean that it's more inexcusable for a big budget movie to have a little shoddy CGI in it. Hell no. After seeing what people are doing on average home computers and with little money, I expect MORE out of the low budget flicks. When you have all the money in the world to spend on your movie, you damn well better hire the best. When you're on a shoestring, it's about getting the biggest bang for your buck. And when you don't...when you get something that looks like it was made using the airbrush in MS Paint...that's the CGI to get offended by.