They're marketing to me, I can feel it

I'm inordinately excited about 10,000 B.C., a new action movie taking place in that year. The trailer includes what appear to be terror birds (or, one supposes, their old-world analogue) and sabre-toothed cats (which are too big, but whatchagonna do) and thousands of cgi mammoths. It's made by the same sick glorious bastard who made Independence Day and Day After Tomorrow (we're lucky this wasn't called "day way back in the past") two of the biggest and stupidest and most entertaining movies ever. Could this be the first entertaining prehistoric action movie? (I've seen Quest for Fire and One Million BC--I want something better.)

I assume that anyone with more than a cursory background in anthropology or paleontology would break a blood vessel trying to watch it. I don't know for sure, but Hollywood has a very poor record in this area, and come on, did you see Day After Tomorrow? Several climatologists has to be hospitalized with broken blood vessels after seeing that. Also, anyone who doesn't like to see white people with dreadlocks should probably avoid it. (My only objection: why are his dreadlocks so short?)

I'm also pretty interested in seeing Cloverfield or whatever it's called. (That's right, I'm the sci fi fan that pays half attention.) The biggest problem with Godzilla-type movies is that the view from above perspective distances you from the movie. You almost never are afraid of a rubber suit monster filmed from above, or even eye-level. The beginning hype (I've seen maybe 3 commercials) is starting to catch on with me. Apparently someone involved in "Lost" is involved in this movie, which has fans of that show excited. I've never seen it, just as I've never seen "Buffy," and as that was no obstacle to me liking "Firefly," I don't think it matters in this case either.

This is the first time in a long time there have been two movies in the theatre that I actually would want to watch in the theatre. I can barely find the spare time to watch movies at home, unfortunately. It seems to take a great deal of planning to get us out to a movie, so unless Alexis wants to see an prehistoric action movie or "godzilla meets blair witch" (as described by someone on my friends list) I'll wait to see them on Netflix.

For the New Yorkers

I know New York City can be a dull staid place, and people who live near there languish for lack of entertainment or intellectual stimulation, but I just got this message in my email that I though I'd share:


Dear Mailing List,

It's election season! And although I will go to my grave a die-hard supporter of the DYNAMIC, FRESH-FACED PHENOMENON that is FRED THOMPSON, I have been "hornswoggled" into participating in a fundraiser for some ol' fuddy-duddy named Barack Obama.

I was reviewing the line-up and started busting a gut in the mere ANTICIPATION of the "threat-level-omega" laughtivity that is gonna be unleashed:

Aziz Ansari, Eugene Mirman, Heather Lawless, Andrea Rosen, Slovin and Allen, Todd Barry, David Rees, Whitest Kids U Know, Laura Krafft, Greg Johnson + More!

If, like me, you'd prefer that the keys to the White House are not passed back and forth between Bushes and Clintons like a goddamn Myrtle Beach time-share, I encourage you to attend this event!

Barack Obama Comedy Benefit
Tuesday, January 29
The Knitting Factory
New York, NY
8:00 PM / $25
http://knittingfactory.com/show.php?event_id=111809

TIME TO BRING IT.

Thanks for your interest,
David Rees
http://www.mnftiu.cc


I can't vouch for those other jokers, but David Rees (I think of him as my friend Cal) is pants-wettingly hilarious (in print and in person).

Important!

PLEASE POST A TARDIGRADE PICTURE IN THE COMMENTS!

New Soylent Screen Up!

Hey! It's another fairly big budget sci-fi movie that I didn't really care for! I must be some kind of curmudgeon, I tell ya. This time it's the 2007 space disaster movie Sunshine, starring ugly heartthrob Cillian Murphy, Michelle Yeoh, and a bunch of other doomed bastards. It looked pretty cool, but I was tired of the crew's bickering by the 20 minute mark, and it doesn't stop until there's nothing but corpses to bicker with. I can't explain why Alien (which also featured a crew full of people who hated each other dying horribly one by one) was better, but it was. Maybe it was the top-quality acting and directing, not present in Sunshine.

But other people probably love the movie, its blandly hopeless tone, its hilarious spacesuits, and Murphy's wide wet eyes. To them I say, sorry. It sucked.

Read a longer and slightly less mean and funny version of this review (and understand why I asked you to post a picture of a tardigrade) at Blood Blade and Thruster!