Netflix Raises Prices

 
So a lot of people are talking about the announcement that Netflix made this week about their new prices. So pretty much it's like this, Now your DVD queue and Watch Instantly plans are separate. They had account options up until now where you could have both at a combined price. Now you will have to pay for both separately. So pretty much my unlimited Watch Instantly streaming and unlimited 2 DVDs at a time were $14.99 a month. Now they will be priced individually. Watch instantly is $7.99 and the 2 DVD plan is $11.99 a month and there is no package deal. Not cool Netflix.

New users who sign up for Neflix now will only get these new prices. Current users will be forced into the new price plans starting September 1st.

Is Netflix really hard up for the extra cash? Last I checked they have nearly put Blockbuster out of business. I think Netflix will see a decent drop in their user's plans in the near future. Hell, I plan to finish up as much of my DVD queue as I can before September then switch to Watch Instantly only. Still, Netflix itself is still a great thing. People are still going to use it. There's nothing more convenient than your rentals shipped strait to your house in just a day or streaming a wide variety of movies and TV shows from your computer, gaming system, or Netflix ready box or TV.

Even the Redbox rentals still make you leave your house twice and charge a late fee. The way I see it, Netflix is still the best option, but damn. What a slap in the face.

Nerdgasm!

I’m not sure when they were all added to Netflix watch instantly, but I was very (almost TOO very) excited to discover that Netflix now has the X-Men , Spider-man, Iron Man, and The Avengers cartoon series to Watch Instantly. Yeah I’m talking about that 90’s shit. And I say shit in a good way.

I’m more excited about X-Men. This show was my introduction into the world of comics. I still have a big comic box full of only X-Men comics. Uncanny X-men annual Vol.1 #17 “Where Walks the X-Cutioner” was the first comic I ever bought. When I was a kid I would make sure I was parked in front of the TV every Saturday morning by 11:00am to be sure not to miss X-Men on Fox.  It was so fitting that X-Men was the first of this new generation of comic book movies to spark the current craze. This certainly sparked my interest.

So last Sunday, much like the Saturday mornings of my childhood, I parked myself in front of the TV and streamed the entire first season of X-Men. It still holds up. Well, it does for me at least. X-Men introduced real action into a very bland list of Saturday morning cartoons. The show stayed true to the comics and you didn’t need to be a kid to enjoy it. The violence wasn’t toned down particularly. This is a good thing.

I highly recommend that all you Marvel fans go revisit these shows on Netflix. I’m still waiting for Wolverine and the X-Men to pop up on the instant streaming. Unlike the show that IS on Watch Instantly, X-Men: Evolution, Wolverine and the X-Men follows the comics and is almost like a reboot of the 90’s X-Men series. Check that one out too if you can. 

E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial

Last night I had the pleasure of watching E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial. I haven't seen this movie but only once when I was about 5 or 6 years old. I remember my parents bought the VHS and we all watched it in the living room while my sisters and I sat on the floor eating spaghetti. Don't ask me how I remember that. I can barely remember last week. I guess the film touched me in a way that I will always remember it and where I was and what I was doing when I first saw it.

So since it had been so long I decided to have another viewing and so I put the DVD in my Netflix queue. Good or not (it's up for debate), like the Star Wars DVDs, this is the, I guess you could call it “Special Edition” with updated CGI effects. I soon figured that out once E.T. appears in the movie and the effects are clearly a better quality than were available when the film was shot in 1981. One scene that seemed to be very touched up was the scene where Elliot and E.T. are in the bathroom and Elliot is showing his alien friend what a bath is. Wow, I just realized how wrong that statement sounded. I assure you it was innocent. I'm curious as to how the scene originally looked , because I don't remember.

New updated effects or not, this film still holds up. Sure, there are plenty of things that date the movie, but the main message of the story still remains. You really develop a fondness for E.T. He makes you feel like a kid again. I felt like I was 5 years old again sitting on the floor with a plate of spaghetti. E.T. feels like a real character and not simply a puppet. The child actors in the film play a huge role and their talent really shows. Especially little Gertie played by Drew Barrymore. I'm telling you, between Whip It and re-watching E.T. I'm really coming around on Barrymore.

If you haven't seen E.T. in as many years as I have, I really suggest you give it another watch. This film is truly one of Spielberg's finest. Of course now that I've written this entire entry, I realize that I'm telling you all something you've already known for almost 30 years. Just remember this. You should never be required to listen to Neil Diamond's “Heartlight”. A song that had nothing to do with the release of the film or soundtrack, but was inspired by the movie. Nor should you listen to Michael Jackson's “Someone in the Dark” which was actually commissioned by Spielberg for the E.T. Storybook. Maybe it's just me, but it was no “Billie Jean.” Hell, I feel like he already wrote this song and it was called “Ben” and it was better, but this is a debate for a whole other blog. Just stay away from that Neil Diamond song. 

The Living Dead Series

ZOMBIES!!!!

George Romero

Who doesn't love a good zombie flick? In the last several years especially, the popularity of zombies has risen. Most big cities have a zombie walk event, and various zombie themed things and stuff. Yeah, I got lazy with that last sentence.

I was in the mood to enjoy a good zombie flick and I came to the realization that I have never seen Night of the Living Dead. Director George Romero created this horror classic. In fact, Romero is the godfather of modern day zombies. Before Night of the Living Dead, zombies showed up in movies about voodoo and they were just people under mind control. Romero took a much scarier approach by making the zombies the walking dead.

So I decided that if I'm going to watch NOTLD I might as well watch all of the Romero zombie series. So I did.

The first movie up is Night of the Living Dead of course. Fuck, this movie still holds up. What's great about George Romero's movies is he adds some social commentary. The movies are about the people in them and the zombie apocalypse is simply the backdrop. This is indie filmmaking at it's finest.

Next up is Dawn of the Dead. I saw the 2004 Zach Snyder remake before I ever saw the original and I think that made this hard. The remake is so very very good. After seeing that, this one just could not compare. I didn't like what they did with the makeup for the zombies in this one. They were all blue. What's up with that? Did all these people die of suffocation? I'd recommend that you pass over this one and go straight for the 2004 remake. I think it might be the best zombie film ever made.

Day of the Dead really surprised me. For some reason I didn't expect this one to be good, but it was great. Again Romero focuses on the struggle between the people in the story. This movie also shows us that the zombies do have little intelligence and a flicker of a memory.

The only movie from the Living Dead series that I saw in a theater is Land of the Dead. This one was the only big budget movie in the series. George Romero deserved this. He deserved the known actors and the amazing makeup effects. I didn't like this movie when I first saw it, but I have completely changed my mind on that. This movie is awesome on the effects alone. In a world of overdone CGI effects it's great to see a film make use of the extremely talented effects artists who make the gore look real and not like a video game.

Diary of the Dead is where things get, lets say cheap. I have to admit that I could not finish this movie. I know that it is in no way fair to comment on a movie that you didn't finish, but I just couldn't. The acting was pretty bad and the effects were all cheap CGI. I was really bummed out at what was happening to the series.

Finally, the most recent in the series is Survival of the Dead. This one is more of the same as the last one. Like the other films, this one deals with the struggle between people. In this case it's to feuding families. The problem is that I don't find any of the characters interesting. I don't feel invested enough to care if any of them live or die. I guess the idea was to side with one of the families, but I really felt like I was on the side of the zombies.

Make no mistake that George Romero is fucking king in the horror scene. I just really hope that Survival of the Dead is not the end of the series. I hope he goes out with a bang. There really isn't an ending to any of the movies and that's the idea. The zombies go on and on. Maybe one of these days Romero will write and ending and close the book. I hope it's good. I promise you I'll see it no mater what. Zombies are awesome!!!!

Batman Forever

This will the be the third time that I have sat down to write this entry. I completed it altogether the first time I attempted it, but Blogger lost all but the first paragraph after I went back in to edit a word. The second time, I was about two paragraphs in when I just lost interest and scraped the whole thing. This time around I am dedicated to rewriting it. So let's get started.

I was recently home sick from work flipping through the channels trying to find something on daytime television that wasn't about going back to school or filing for workers compensation. That's when I stumbled across a movie that I haven't seen in a long time.

I loved the Batman movies when I was a kid. I can still remember the summer day in 1989 when my father took the whole family to see Batman. I absolutely loved that movie and the sequel Batman Returns. But there was something different about Batman Forever. Actually, there were a lot of things that were different. First of all, that's the same Alfred and Commissioner Gordon, but that's not Michael Keaton as Batman! I soon found out why this movie looked and felt so much different from the first two movies. This movie was not directed by Tim Burton, but Joel Schumacher.

Batman Forever clearly seems to be directed towards a younger audience, but why? Tim Burton's Batman was a great success and this is still part of that same series. If the studio wanted to make the movie differently, why didn't they just reboot the franchise? Probably because they already had an audience and a reboot would NEVER work.

I don't have anything against Val Kilmer as an actor. In fact I really like him. And I think we can all agree that Tommy Lee Jones is a great actor, but I'm not sure if he was really trying to play Harvey Dent/Two Face or just another version of The Joker. If you remember in the first Tim Burton's Batman Billy Dee Williams played Harvey Dent. I heard that Williams was set to play a more prominent role as Two Face in a future sequel, but once Joel Schumacher took over as director he had Billy Dee Williams' contract paid off so that he could cast Jones. When I first heard this I was a little bummed, but now I feel like Williams lucked out. 

 

When it comes to casting I think Jim Carrey was a great choice for The Riddler. He was THE funny man at the time with the success of Ace Venture: Pet Detective, Dumb and Dumber, and The Cable Guy. He was definitely a good “get” for this one. As far as Chris O'Donnell, I have no opinion. What happened to that guy?

I feel like Schumacher was trying to recreate the 1960s Batman series. Was he even aware that Batman was based on a comic book? I have a feeling like Burton was more inspired by Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns version of a much darker Batman. Schumacher on the other hand used a lot of those crooked camera angles that were popular in the 60s Batman. Ok, so it's obvious what Schumacher was trying to do here, but keep in mind that this isn't his series really. He was taking over the series. Sure, every director should put there own touch on something, but again, the series should have just been rebooted.

You know what's really wrong with this movie? Batman had nipples. Seriously, he had nipples! What was that meeting like? “Joel, we're very pleased with what you are doing with our Batman franchise,. We don't really care about a story, but we need something to sell to the kids. Can we put nipples on Batman's suit? Kids love nipples!”

Also, what the fuck is up with all the neon? Did Gotham suddenly spend all of the city's income on neon lights? Even the Batmobile was tricked out in neon lights. What was wrong with the Batmobile before? Sure, there have been some pretty ridiculous versions of the Batmobile, but I think that Tim Burton's version was one of the coolest. Why would Batman want to light up his car. He should be more concerned about sneaking up on his enemies not give them a big bright warning sign.

Is this really a bad movie? No, I wouldn't say so. Hell, I really liked this movie as a kid. I even owned a copy of it on VHS. There are just some things that I never understood about the differences. I could write a whole other entry about the movie that followed, Batman and Robin, but it's already gone down in history as one of the worst films ever made.

Red State

Last week I had the privilege to see Kevin Smith present a showing of his new film Red State. I'm going to try and be un-bias with my review, but anyone who knows me knows that I am a HUGE Kevin Smith fan. Also, in all honesty. I loved this movie.

Smith is touring the United States right now with his new horror film. Red State is his venture back into purely independent film making. He is self promoting the film through twitter, his podcast network, and a tour where he shows the movie and follows it up with a very funny Q&A. If you have ever seen any of the Evening With Kevin Smith DVDs you know how entertaining the man can be.

Before the movie started Kevin Smith took the stage to introduce it. He talked about how when you tour with a movie like this things happen that you would otherwise miss out on if you let some company advertise your film for you. He talked about his run-ins with the Phelps family from the Westboro Baptist Church, you know, the "God Hates Fags" nut bags (Haha, that rhymed!). They call Smith a "fag enabler," a title that Smith is very proud of. He said that's makes him like a gay pimp. Kevin told all of us about how he invited the Phelps crew into the theater to see the film at one of the shows, but they walked out 15 minutes in. After the movie, two former WBC members introduced themselves to Smith and were invited on stage to tell their story of leaving the church. Hear the audio of this on Kevin and Jen's podcast "Plus One" HERE. (It's episode 15.)

Kevin Smith and his crew counter protesting the WBC on Red State Tour.

Finally, it was time to start the movie. I don't want to give away ANYTHING about the film, but I have to say that it blew me away. This wasn't your typical dick and fart joke Kevin Smith stoner comedy.The suspense picks up pretty early in the film and DOES NOT let up until the end. Even when the scenes become more calm with Michael Parks's performance you still feel uneasy because Parks is so fucking good.

You won't miss Smith's comedy either because there are still plenty of moments that get a good laugh from the audience. John Goodman is responsible for many of these moments, especially towards the end. In fact the very last line of the movie gets a huge laugh. I'm the type of guy who was won over by Kevin Smith with Clerks and Mallrats, but it was so good to see him step into a new genre and do it well. Smith has announced that after Red State he only has one more movie in him, Hit Somebody. After that, he's retiring from film making. What a way to go out. Smith said "fuck it," to the industry. "I'm going to do this my way." Well he never ACTUALLY said that, but in so many words...

Red State will be released in October. I highly recommend that everyone goes to see it. Especially if you hate the Westboro Baptist Church, which I'm pretty sure everybody does.

Vanishing Point (1971)

This week I decided to go with a classic, or rather, my father decided for me. My dad and I were at the bar a few weeks ago and he suggested several classic films that I should rent from Netflix. The first film he mentioned was the original Vanishing Point released in 1971. It's a simple car chase movie with stunts and a sweet ass 1970 Dodge Charger. That's the synopsis right there. Do you need to know any more than that? It screams GUY MOVIE. I was somewhat aware of the movie already. I believe Quentin Tarantino had mentioned before that it was one of the movies that inspired Death Proof. So I decided to watch it with my folks and aunt and uncle during some holiday time off. Besides, my father has a sweet home theater to watch it in.

Ok, first I should mention that this review is going to contain SPOILERS. If you don't want me to spoil 40 year old movie... then... well too bad! You've had 40 years! OR you can just stop reading right now.

The film follows the character Kowalski played by Barry Newman. Kowalski delivers cars and he delivers them fast. Why does he choose to be so fast? I wish I knew. Is there something on the line if he doesn't get the car from Colorado to San Francisco on time? Nope, not as far as I can tell. This is the main problem with the plot. There is NO REASON for the entire story to even take place. Maybe if the cars were stolen or something and some crime lord needed them fast and Kowalski's family's lives were on the line, then we'd have a movie. That's a simple element that could have been added to the story. Sure, it seems like a cliche plot by today's standards (in fact I think that's the plot to the remake of Gone In 60 Seconds) but in 1971 that would be original. From what I hear they added more to the plot when they remade Vanishing Point for TV in 1997.

We don't know much about Kowalski other than he really wants to get this Chager to San Fran in the fastest time possible for no reason. Throughout the film we see flashbacks that tell us a little more about Kowalski, but this still doesn't add much to the story. We learn that he used to race motorcycles and stock cars professionally, he was once a cop, and a girl he was... dating? married to? just met? died in a surfing accident. At least now we know how and why he's so good at driving, why he's usually good at evading the police, and that I guess the woman in his life is dead so he has nothing to lose.

The one character that at least beefs up the story a little bit is "Super Soul" played by Cleavon Little. Super Soul is a blind radio DJ who hears about Kowalski over the police radio. Soul then begins to broadcast what's going on in Kowalski's trip as well as broadcast warnings to Kowalski over the radio. Now that this is all being broadcast over the radio waves, people are becoming interested and Kowalski gains supporters that he didn't want for something he probably doesn't even need to be doing.

One part of the film that really threw me off for it's inexplicable randomness is when Kowalski is greeted by one of his supporters who rides up along side the Charger on a motorcycle. The hippie biker asks Kowalski if he needs anything and Kowalski tells him that he needs some "uppers" to help him finish his trip. The biker tells Kowalski to follow him back to his place and he can give him some. When they arrive Kowalski is greeted by a nude biker girl who rides around their trash pile house naked. She offers Kowalski sex and weed, but all he wants is a cigarette. Well that was pointless! She didn't even need to be in the movie, they just wanted to add more boobs to get that hard R rating. The hippie biker guy does help Kowalski get past the cops, but the nude chick didn't add anything other than boobies.

In the end Kowalski is trapped. He has a road blocked by bulldozers in front of him, and police cars closing in behind him. What does our "hero" do in this situation? He smiles and plows head on into the bulldozers killing himself. WHAT!? Why? Why was he even doing any of this in the first place? So many unanswered questions. I guess in a movie like this all you need to sell it is cool cars, fast driving, and stunts. The 70s was filled with movies like this. Dark, depressing, R rated, action thrillers, that just left you feeling empty when it was all over. That's why Star Wars was such a breath of fresh air when it was released, It was a fun, action, big budget, fairy tale with a happy ending. I'm glad we've learned more about filmmaking since 1971. This movie had so much potential if only there was more story behind it. In the end I can see why it's a car classic. The fast cars and stunts were cool, but that don't cut it these days. Vanishing Point falls short of the finish line.