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rock_slabfist
Reviews
After the Warming (1989)
Brilliant view of the future of the planet
This is a very intelligent look at our planet and the forces (some natural and some man made) that have and are driving the climate.
While critics tend to be very harsh with Mr. Burke, I have yet to hear or read one of them show me that their expertise in historical matters approaches that of Mr. Burke.
The only other comment on this board is grossly unfair. I wonder if the poster has house insurance? If he does, he is showing his blatant hypocrisy. Why should the planet be denied the same protections that he feels his house is entitled to? The previous poster has offered no credentials, no concrete scientific statements of FACT to back up his claims, only wild speculation and partisan hackery.
One of the last things Burke says in this "documentary from the future" is that mankind avoided the problem by taking steps to avoid it. He says (I'm paraphrasing here) "It was a close run thing...but it DIDN'T HAVE TO BE".
Watch this for yourself and see what YOU think. Do some research and try and find a flaw in Burke's logic. While all his proposed scenarios might not be feasable, at least he's THINKING ABOUT THE PROBLEM, which is MUCH MORE than all his ostrich critics AREN'T!
Battlestar Galactica (2004)
I dare to call this turd a turd!
From the channel that brought you MEGALADON 3, BOAS, PYTHONS and LARVA, comes another all-too-successful attempt at wringing the intellect out of Science Fiction. BSG: The New Series.
This series is a stinky turd sitting in the bottom of the SciFi Channel commode and no matter how many people call it a rose, it STILL STINKS LIKE A TURD.
That being said, I will now give my detailed reasons WHY this show stinks.
Gender Changes: Change gender of characters to promote sexual tension. What OTHER reason could there possibly be to make Starbuck and Boomer female ? Moore is already taking advantage of the Apollo/Starbuck relationship and the Boomer/Chief one. So, what has Moore GAINED here...only an easy plot device. This is known in writing circles as being a HACK! What other reasons are there for changing the sexes? Someone PLEASE tell me how Starbuck's female side has manifested itself in anything OTHER than a sexual manner. You can't!
Cylons look human. How convenient for him. Now you can cast people as villains without having to actually DO any of the hard work associated with alien/robotic races. The Original Star Trek did a fine job on it's budget...and in a time when a show like "Sliders" can feature a T-Rex, surely the creators of this incarnation of BSG could pony up the dough for non-human characters. Well apparently NOT! Of course, non-humans are MUCH harder to write for, so again we see the HACK being displayed.
Blair Witch Camera Work. Well, well well. What can you hide with shoddy camera work? A WHOLE LOT. The cinema verite style has been done to death! If you're gonna use it, make sure there's a reason. There is no reason here that I can discern than to give this junk a pseudo-realistic feel. If you WRITE and ACT WELL, you don't NEED jerky camera movement to distract viewers. After all, that's what the hand held shots do, your brain is busy trying to make sense of what it is seeing and you are NOT concentrating on the story. Moore knows that if you were, you would be disappointed. Flashy camera work of SPX does NOT compensate for poor writing. Just ask George Lucas.
Poor Writing. Tigh says "JESUS" in the miniseries. That little slip up pretty much RUINED the entire continuity for me. So Tigh's heard of Jesus, has he? Well then, he's probably heard most of the old testament too, Moses, Noah...etc. Funny that there's no further mention of such a shared religion, especially when the colonials' world is coming to an end, surely the time to invoke a higher being if ever there was one?
In the miniseries, 6 kills an infant before the cylon attack. Now, this is not the SMARTEST thing to do. Sort of like if the sailors aboard the midget Japanese subs off Pearl Harbor on Dec 7th started shooting children on the beach. It just didn't make any sense, other than to show how evil the cylons are...they killed a baby!
In "Water" Helo and Boomer LIGHT A FIRE when they are trying to avoid detection from the cylons. Call me silly, but this is just PLAIN DUMB! Why not shoot up a flare to let the cylons know where you are? And of course, there are no ramifications for their STUPIDITY!
And in my opinion, the best example of the HORRIBLE writing on this show is how the Chief will protect and LIE for Boomer, even though she is the most likely candidate for sabotaging the water supply. Now call me silly, but if I suspected my girlfriend may be trying (even unconsciously) to doom me and my WHOLE RACE to death, I say or DO something about it. Even to protect HER. Covering up her possible involvement is just not an option when the WHOLE HUMAN RACE IS AT STAKE. This are just a few of the more GLARING examples of the LACK OF THOUGHT that went into this series.
To those who say that I should just watch the old show and let them watch this one, I say, Where it NOT for people like me who watched and LIKED the old show, THIS show would NOT be here. It was TOS that kept interest alive in BSG. If you like this show, in my opinion you would like just about ANYTHING that has a SF stamp on it. Just look at the revenues for Phantom Menace...made millions and it was a lousy movie when compared to the earlier films.
No remake has been better than the original. This show is no exception. I will no longer watch it. I'm tired of having my intelligence insulted. Maybe SciFi can redeem itself by doing a Space:Above and Beyond miniseries (much better written...much better acted, much better SPX and camera work) and pick up where the series left off. They had better think about it...cause I sure as hell aren't tuning into their stellar programming schedule as much as I used to. Oh, maybe that's why Moore SEXED up BSG...to get ratings.
Cabin Fever (2002)
This is what is wrong with Horror Films today **SPOILERS**
This movie wasn't very good. The characters were broad stereotypes who never broke out of their respective molds. The writing was intended for an audience that wouldn't question what they were being fed.
Just a hint to other posters here, but STEALING isn't paying homage to other films.
I read a lot of "Evil Dead" comparisons on the comment page, and I saw NOTHING that compared to evil dead other than this mess of a movie took place in a cabin. "Evil Dead" had great lines, sight gags and inventive camera work. This movie had the "I'm gonna shoot gay squirrels" line and they even backpedaled from that!
"Cabin Fever" didn't pay homage to previous horror films, it just blatantly ripped them off. And it didn't even have the imagination to add a twist...it simply ripped off the ending of "The Night of the Living Dead."
This is a medicore effort, but I suppose if you are hard up for horror and have VERY low standards, you might get some thrills out of it. As for me, I thought this was a very poor written film and I wished I had not spent the money for the discount matinee I saw it at.