In 1987, in the midst of his heyday, Arnold Schwarzenegger starred in Predator, an action sci-fi mixed genre film that won over both critics and movie-goers. But just like everything successful in Hollywood, the studio system attempted to build it into a franchise. The first sequel, Predator 2, was made in 1990 and both Alien vs. Predator and AVPR: Alien vs. Predator – Requiem arrived in the last six years. A mixed bag commercially, the films received a common line from the critics: a big thumbs down. While containing the same alien species, there was no linear connection between the sequels and the original film (the final two films merely an excuse to get two of cinema’s classic creatures to do battle). With Nimrod Antal’s Predators, the fifth film in the line, that pattern comes to an abrupt and blissful end. Continue reading MasterChugs Theater: ‘Predators’
Tag: fox
A Fox as a cat? Now we’ve seen everything
Ever since Christopher Nolan announced that he would make another Batman movie, the rumor mill has wondered who the villain(s) will be and–more importantly–who will be cast and naysayed until they die.
Today’s rumor comes from MTV UK, and it presents Megan Fox as the possible new Catwoman.
Comparing this version of Catwoman to previous ones, The Sun (a trustworthy source, indeed) said that Fox plans to make the character “more sinister,” having “a darker edge” and “not being able to act her way into a nude scene.”
A riddle inside an enigma wrapped around a turd
At a time when it seems the 24-hour news networks aren’t aware of their own banality, CNN asks whether the media has payed too much attention to Jon and Kate Gosselin and the Octomom … in another f$#king article about the Gosselins and the Octomom.
The CNN piece mentions how Kate Gosselin gave an interview last week on NBC’s Today show and Live! With Regis & Kelly, and Nadya “Octomom” Suleman will appear in a two-hour special on Fox.
These are interesting points, except we’re talking about:
- The Today Show and Regis, two morning zoo shows. These are the big networks’ equivalent of an alarm clock that annoys you out of bed, only with fake tans and cooking segments. Stupid interviews with sad people are kind of standard, considering most of the audience is unemployed or in waiting rooms.
- Fox Two-Hour Specials. Previous Fox specials have included a bogus alien autopsy, the original When Animals Attack special and extra long segments of Cops and Jerry Springer.
So, way to go, CNN. You’ve managed to be the only “credible” source to cover vagina clown cars today.
You Missed It: What about white guys? edition
If you are reading this, odds are you are not on vacation right now. That’s a good thing, because I am not either, yet it seems that half the world has decided to take their vacation now. If I have to suffer, I’m glad you’re here to suffer with me. If you were busy getting psyched up for the anniversary of the moon landing this week, odds are you missed it.
Next up on C-SPAN theater
Supreme Court Justice nominee Sonia Sotomayor faced several days of senators trying to get in the best sound bite while wrapping it up somehow in the form of a question. In response, Sotomayor responded in an honest, totally not-coached way. But through it all, the most important issue emerged: Sotomayor, pinned by questions, was forced to admit that she is in fact a “Latina woman.”
Oh yeah? Well ‘The Dark Knight’ still holds the top spot!
The latest Harry Potter movie, which we believe has something to do with Harry Potter and a prince of half-blood–or something along those lines, brought in $58 million in a single day, making it the best opening for any of the series, and fourth of any movie ever released. This just goes to show, if you make a movie about a kid’s book exciting enough for children, but dark enough and sexy enough for adults, both demographics will meet in a creepy, creepy middle.
If I have to watch that “Roosevelts” Taco Bell commercial one more time …
Major League Baseball, for the most part, was on a break earlier this week, but fortunately, your baseball viewing was in overtime. The Home Run Derby lasted nearly a fortnight, which resulted in Chris Berman running out of “Back back back back”s (followed by the celebrity softball game, which you know you stuck around for), while the All-Star Game itself clocked in at under three hours. Say, did you know that Albert Pujols plays for the St. Louis Cardinals, where the All-Star Game was being played? Did you know that Fox announcer Joe “Slamalama Ding-Dong” Buck’s father was a famous announcer for the St. Louis Cardinals, where the All-Star Game was being played? In case you didn’t, ESPN and FOX saw to it to remind you once or twice.
You Missed It: Has it been eight years already? edition
Much of the U.S. is in a cold snap right now, with wind chills dipping across the continent to less than 0 degrees Fahrenheit. This has taken the country completely off guard because it’s winter time, which means temperatures in the 30s followed by days in the 60s. Remember though, global warming is a myth those hippies are selling. Don’t buy it. If you were taking an unexpected dip in the Hudson River this week, odds are you missed it.
No more Bush
President George Bush (who somehow dropped the W. in news references in late 2001) gave his last press briefing this week, one in which he outlined his presidency, and for the first time in the White House (though he has admitted to it many times in press interviews the past few months) that he regrets the “Mission Accomplished” sign. That was one of the big ones. OK, we get that one, but there were a few other biguns in there. If only I could remember two dozen or so.
The application Steve Jobs has unexpectedly quit
Citing health reasons, Apple CEO Steve Jobs said he would temporarily step down from his position. Jobs is credited with growing the company to roughly four or five times the size it was in the first part of the decade. He credits the success to hard work, innovation and an unending ad campaign conditioning the masses to pay exorbitant amounts of cash for something cool. Jobs claims health problems as his reason to step down, but really it’s just that he wants to use a computer that actually closes a program when you “X out” of it.
Did it just get warmer in here?
In FOX’s long, long battle on our eardrums, the latest season of American Idol debuted this week. The opening episodes are usually fun because you can watch the people who really, really suck act like they don’t know it already and are just trying to get themselves on television so they can promote their Web site. But one surprise contestant sang and stripped. Casey Carlson apparently can not only sing a few bars, she can also model bikinis with the best of them. She showed off both talents during his audition. Randy was the only one who cared.
Eat My Sports: The 2008 Hurl Series
As a baseball fan, I am ashamed. I’ve squared with the fact that the season for the Red Sox just continues in March (otherwise known for some as “Spring Training”). However, this World Series has just become a joke. The umpires in this year’s edition obviously belong in the minors, Bud Selig is better served as a special PR consultant to Jose Canseco, and the whole state of Florida can eat my sports for this load of crap bandwagon for the Rays.
Last night’s game should NEVER have happened. MLB knew the forecast for Philadelphia waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay before the game even started. But networks run sports these days, and FOX, which is probably ready to shoot themselves over the ratings, needed a potential championship game. Which, being a media guy, I get to some degree. But on my end of things, it’s easy to be a purest/righteous when it has nothing at stake for me. But that’s exactly why I get to complain about it, so deal with it, commies. Continue reading Eat My Sports: The 2008 Hurl Series
Warrior of the Week: Avis Blakeslee
Little old ladies are often targets for mugging and aggressive home lenders, so it’s natural for an animal to assume along the same lines. As Avis Blakeslee, 77, of Pennsylvania proved, little old ladies can also be tough old broads.
Blakeslee was attacked by a rabid fox near her home and sustained seven wounds on her leg and one on her arm, but those only made her mad. The grandmother grabbed the fox threw it to the ground (we can only assume in piledriver fashion) and pinned it to the ground while flagging a nearby motorist for help.
The motorist got the attention of Blakeslee’s son, who gave the fox its swift justice. Blakeslee spent four days recovering in the hospital before being sent home, presumably by ticker tape parade.
“I had never seen a fox,” she said. “I’ve seen a dead one once.”
Make that two dead foxes, granny. Which makes a fox’s survival rate in your presense a big ol’ goose egg.
Finally: an FCC fine we can agree with
Fox, by way of News Corp., is in trouble with the FCC for airing pixelated boobies on some show we’ve never seen called Married by America. This is the standard on which the FCC has based their suit:
“It ‘in context, depicts or describes sexual or excretory activities or organs in a patently offensive manner as measured by contemporary community standards for the broadcast medium.'”
Which has been applied to this:
“‘the thrusting of a male stripper’s crotch into a woman’s face; a topless stripper performing a lap dance for a groom-to-be; a topless female stripper spanking with a whip or belt the buttocks of a topless man who is on all fours; two topless female strippers apparently kissing while straddling a shirtless man; and a female stripper cupping her own bare breasts and puckering her lips.'”
The FCC is absolutely correct: this should not have been obscured with pixels! Fox, you owe us some strippers.
Pixelation can’t prevent
It looks like the FCC‘s back at it again. The government group is fining Fox TV affiliates $7,000 for showing a naked bachelor party scene on some ridiculous reality show that nobody watched … but they’re only fining stations that somebody complained to. That’s 13 out of 169 in the network, which my calculator function tells me comes out to a grandiose number of one whole percent. More than that, the offensive material was fully pixelated, but still allegedly has the power to offend. Apparently, it’s OK to broadcast whatever you like as long as you never open your mail.
The fight to save bunnies–for testing purposes
Last week, this blog ended a post saying that we could trust machines with any job we might give an animal. This blog would now like to rescind that statement. There are some things animals are so much better at than machines could or should ever be.
Scientists at this very moment are working on building robots on which to test chemicals, rather than testing them on cute little bunnies. Folks, if there is one job an animal has, it is to taste good, and if there are two jobs an animal has, those are to taste good and to be subjected to our cruel product testing. Better them than us.
More than just that, using robots to test on would mean we would have to give them some sort of intelligence. It is only a matter of time before the machines become self-aware and are tired of us. As Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles tells us (Mondays on FOX at 9 p.m. Eastern), self-aware machines are a very, very bad thing for the human race.
(Via Engadget)