Bitch Slap DVD Review

Bitch Slap (2009) - R

 (DVD Unrated Version)

****

"What can I say? We're all just bitches in the end."

WARNING: This review might contain SPOILERS!

Where to begin? The beginning? Well the movie itself doesn't begin at the beginning so why should this review. HA! In a nutshell the writers/producers wanted to make a movie with the world's longest chick fight aka "Bitch Slap" for the soul purpose of their own enjoyment. Well I think this film achieved that. I'm not sure if it made the record for being the longest chick fight in cinema history but it is basically just a long drawn out chick fight with some flashback exposition in the attempt to give the long chick fight some storyline. Of course most straight male viewers (and a few female viewers) between the ages of say 12 to 35 (the target audience) wouldn't notice if there was a plot to this thing. It does manage to keep the fight relatively "clean". The only nudity in the film is topless dancers in a flashback scene, the fight itself doesn't have any nudity. The only real wardrobe malfunctions if you can call them that would be a very quick crotch shot (nothing shows) and maybe maybe a nipslip or two. My TV is only 20" at the most so there could be more. I don't have all the hi-tech super duper "toys" so what?

One of the main reasons I picked up this DVD as a blind buy was because of the Cameos of Kevin Sorbo and Michael Hurst (Their parts are a little more than just cameos) from Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and Lucy Lawless and Renee O'Connor from Xena: Warrior Princess (Whose cameos are just cameos). Bitch Slap Producer Rick Jacobson directed some episodes of those two fantasy/adventure shows. He also directed six episodes of the sci-fi adventure Cleopatra 2525 another slightly larger than shoe-string budget television series filmed in Ozland that I enjoy. I have the DVDs for that as well, but not Herc and Xena. Their original DVD releases were by season and too expensive at the time.

Also appearing in this film is stunt woman/actress Zoe Bell and Ausie native who worked on all those other shows mainly as a stunt woman her main role in the entertainment world. She plays the character Rawhide in this as well as doing much of the stunt work and the main choreographer of the stunts. In one of the behind the scenes segments on the DVD or in the commentaries maybe in both either Zoe or Erin Cummings gives a shot by shot commentary of when Zoe was doing the fighting for the characters in the final battle. To see more of Zoe watch the Death Proof segment of Grindhouse (2007) she plays herself. In some countries the segments were shown as two separate movies (Death Proof and Planet Terror) in others they were shown together.

I don't want to spoil to much even though I posted a spoiler warning, but come to think of it there is somewhat of a storyline that involves stolen diamonds, weapons of mass destruction and spies and stuff. OH and lots of scantily clad Girls Women Chicks Babes Sluts Bitches fighting each other. There are loads CGI/green screen special effects many of which are totally ridiculous, but that is all part of the name of this game.

So an intellectual cinematic masterpiece this is not. It is also not a family movie. It could be viewed as sexist and juvenile. However, it is entertaining, and in places quite funny.

Starring:Julia Voth, Erin Cummings, America Olivo, Michael Hurst, Kevin Sorbo, Lucy Lawless, Renee O'Connor, Zoe Bell

Directed by: Rick Jacobson

Bombshell Pictures, IM Global

DVD Release Date: 02 Mar 2010

Region 1

1 Disc - 109 Minutes (Unrated) / 106 (R)

I gave this DVD 4 stars ****

Warehouse 13 Wednesday: Magnetism

EPISODE 1.3 "Magnetism"

Original Air Date: 21 July 2009

MYKA: "I've been exposed to the artifact, I should stay locked up."

Warning: This review may contain spoilers

When I originally started this review, and this little Warehouse 13 episode review project of mine, I thought I would be most of the way through the series with a few episodes of Season Four left to review when Season Five came around. Since I had a lot of time I put things off and this review project got stalled. Then the Final Season Season Five started and I had barely started reviewing the first season. Well now Season Five is over and done and reviewed, and it had been a long long time since I had done anything about this pet project. I guess that is the "Pro" in procrastinate.  I rewatched Season 1 Disc 1 to keep everything fresh for this review and to get back into the habit of watching the series DVDs. OK on with the review/recap of this episode.

I find it interesting that in the beginning bit of Pete and Myka retrieving Marie Antoinette's Guillotine from the French Museum and replacing it with a replica, they seem to be a solid well working team as if they have been together for years, but during the bulk of the episode they still seem to be having a power struggle for "team leader".

In the Warehouse while putting the guillotine artifact away and even after Pete and Myka are arguing and shouting at each other. Myka is a bit ticked at Pete for not recharging the Tesla gun from whatever their last assignment was (forcing her to have a more physical fight with the Museum Guards), and about his not following the overall plan and ignoring organized protocol. They unknowingly are disturbing the zen balance of the Warehouse with their negative energy. Artie monitors some online news feeds seemingly while events are unfolding and discovers some possible artifact activity in Unionville, Colorado. He notices Pete and Myka arguing and tries getting their attention telling them to keep it down, but they keep on arguing. Artie is left with no choice he clicks a few computer keys and some levers and switches of other equipment and gives them a shower of purple neutralizing goo.

Back at the bread and breakfast, Pete and Myka have cleaned up and Artie briefs them on the goings on in Colorado. In separate one-on-one short discussions (Pete before the briefing and Myka after the brief) Artie mixes things up by telling each of them before they leave for the main mission of the episode that they are really the team leader in charge, but to let the other one think they are in charge because s/he is sensitive. Pete asks to borrow Artie's car since his truck is still where it was left apparently from a previous mission.

So what do an old lady, a teenager, and a nun all have in common beside freaking out and acting in bizarre ways that are totally against their normal nature? All three, and eventually a few others, were exposed to an artifact.What they came in contact with is what Pete and Myka need to figure out. Pete and Myka interview townsfolk and witness some further bizarre behavior. While consulting with Artie they conclude that the artifact must somehow affect the brain causing a chemical imbalance to whoever has recently touched it or been in contact with it. Pete follows some clues that lead him to an AA meeting and a psychiatrist who is the therapist for some of those affected, he finds a newly acquired pocket watch the therapist bought (he collects fine watches) that once belonged to a famous mentalist. Pete thinking he has made the score starts acting like the king of Warehouse 13 agents but since Myka had been affected by the artifact and was never with the therapist they are back to square one.

Meanwhile back at the Warehouse continuing power outages and electrical glitches that tell Artie the hacker is trying to figure out the power grid of the Warehouse. Leena asks him if he has had anymore success on tracking the hacker, but he tells her it is a pest he will ignore hoping it will just give up and go away.

Pete and Myka mentally retrace their steps trying to figure out what she came in contact with that he didn't, where had she been that he hadn't? As they are putting the pieces together they notice some of the town people including some of the artifact victims entering the town church. That is it Myka had interviewed the priest Father Braid (Phillip Craig) trying to figure out what had set off Sister Grace Ellen (Jennifer Vey) into making her think she could fly. They ask Father Braid if he had acquired anything new recently and find out he had received a chair that had once belonged to a famous ancestor of his James Braid a physician and surgeon who is known as the "Father of Modern Hypnotism". The springs of the chair act as a tuning fork when a descendant of Braid speaks near it, causing anyone who is sitting in the chair to release and act upon their subconscious desires.

Mack the Sheriff causes a commotion in the church sanctuary gun in hand wearing a bomb vest, ranting and raving. Myka confronts him to try to calm him down while in the priest's office Pete douses the chair with neutralizing goo. The goo doesn't work so Pete has to smash the chair with a fire ax. He runs out to check on Myka who is grappling with Mack who is still a bit psycho, he had set off her man issues with some sexist comment. The bombs timer on the vest is ticking away and in typical action drama show fashion gets almost down to zero. They manage to get the vest off of Mack and Pete runs out of the church tossing the vest with few microseconds left.

Back at the bread and breakfast, Pete and Myka report back to Artie filling him in on the artifact snag and giving him some bad news about his car. It seems Pete needed a small enclosed area to toss the bomb and well... It turns out to be just a psyche-out "gottcha" for misleading them about which one is in charge.

Later at the Warehouse the power fluctuations that Artie had been trying to ignore return, he goes to the electrical circuit power grid to fix things. He replaces a fuse, powers down then powers back up and the warning lights begin to flash spelling out "Knock, Knock" a few times. Artie realizes that the hacker has gotten completely into the system.

Series Regulars:
Pete Lattimer (Eddie McClintock)
Myka Bering (Joanne Kelly)
Artie Nielsen (Saul Rubenik)
Leena (Genelle Williams)

Guest Cast:
Sheriff MacKenna (Cornell Womack)
Ross (Ivan Sergei)
Luis (Pedro Miguel Arce)
Ellis (David Collins)
Father Braid (Phillip Craig)
Meg (Deborah Grover)
Dave (Bill Lake)
Tommy (Blake Pouliot)
Sister Grace Ellen (Jennifer Vey) Uncredited

I give this episode 3 Warehouse artifacts ***

Warehouse 13 Wednesday: Resonance

EPISODE 1.2 "Resonance"

Original Air Date: 14 July 2009

PETE: "Belski just got spanked.

So lets go strike while the butt is still hot."

Warning: This review may contain spoilers

OK so for this review I'm a little slow (as I am on most of my reviews dang) I'm not quite ahead in writing reviews as I had originally planned and I'm only 1 episode ahead in watching now. It is not as easy as it looks or sounds to do these reviews (and I'm probably the only one reading them). If I were to do this professionally I would have been fired long ago for doing what Douglas Adams did about deadlines by just listening to the whoosh sound they make passing by. ARGH! To paraphrase a common line from the show I need to view it, review it, and write it (then edit it and post it). 

This is the first regular episode of the series and the first one to show the opening title sequence, more on that sometime in a different post maybe.

After the standard "previously on Hill Street Blues" type recap, things start off with a bank robbery in Chicago, only it isn't a standard hold up. A van pulls up to the bank two people dressed in all black and wearing masks exit the van and enter the bank. One of them opens their coat and the view switches to the bank's CCT security system and interference blanks the screen.

Switch to deep inside the warehouse Pete is playing ping-pong vs. himself via Lewis Carrol's Looking Glass. A large mirror that allows the viewer to interact with their mirror image, in a later episode we will find out more about what the mirror is capable of. Meanwhile some electrical glitches show Artie that someone is trying to hack into the Warehouse's computer systems and they are good. Myka is outside the warehouse talking to her mom on her cell phone and almost pulls a Marsha Brady with the strange football artifact that circles the globe that was sort of introduced in the pilot. It may have some sort of satellite surveillance connection to help hide the warehouse, it is another artifact we will learn more about later in the series. Artie sends Pete and Myka to Chicago to investigate the bank robberies.

Pete and Myka get to Chicago and hit a little bit of a road block via the local FBI agent Bonnie Belski (Tricia Helfer Battlestar Galactica reboot). Seems agent Belski has done a background performance check on Pete and Myka's track record and thinks they are trouble. So she makes things difficult for them and takes everything they say with a grain of salt. The bank employees and customers have no recollection of the robbery.

The warehouse team learn that the robbers used an unreleased recording of a 1960s musician Eric Marsden (John Evans) to put people in a euphoric trance with the soothing song and then simply just ask for the money. This record is the main artifact of the episode. The recording's power is amplified and intensified with the right acoustic settings of the mason work of the bank buildings. The building acoustics were the reason why the banks were chosen.

Meanwhile Artie traces the hacker's trail to Washington DC and suspects Pete and Myka's old boss Daniel Dickenson of being the hacker as it is his computer the trace leads to. So Artie heads to DC to stop Dickenson. Artie gives Pete and Myka the address were Marsden is living and learn he is often in a semi-catatonic state, depressed and diagnosed with liver cancer with a life expectancy of only a year, the investigation leads to music company that holds the rights to Marsden's music who mentions the engineer who Marsden recorded with was last known to be a cab driver. Marsden's catalog being out of fashion with little to no demand conveniently attracts an anonymous buyer to make an offer to buy the entire catalog.

While in Dickenson's office Artie gets a Farnsworth call from Myka telling him about the acoustic nature of the banks that were robbed in an effort to figure out which bank(s) the robbers will hit next. Dickenson catches Artie "in the act" while he is doing something with the computer, I'm not sure exactly what Artie was doing with the computer (Erasing? Copying? Bugging?) but to hold Dickenson for a while he uses an artifact a "Dimensional Conversion Camera" that turns people into two dimensional cardboard cutouts until the camera is used on them again.

On the robber's next bank heist, thanks to Artie's research on the bank structures of the remaining banks that have not yet been robbed that fit the profile of the ones that were robbed Myka arrives on the scene as the robbers are exiting the bank. She gives chase and manages to catch the driver of the van who is Marsden's sound engineer Jed Fissel (Peter Graham). They take him into custody to the FBI offices, unfortunately Fissel's partners in crime spring him using the hypnotic recording system. Thanks to Pete's vibes and a heads up Myka is able to get partial protection from the effects by using ear plugs, but she only has time to get one in. She manages to slip her cellphone into the pockets of one of the crooks.

Artie restores Dickenson back to normal and discovers that he had been had by the hacker. Dickenson is not responsible for the hacking but his computer was used to make it appear he was, together they start a new attempt to find the real hacker.

To tie up loose ends and in an effort to minimize spoilers (or just open them all up) and shorten this review some, Pete and Myka locate her cell phone and discover the other robbers are Marsden's Nurse/Housekeeper/Partner? Jesslyn Henjik (Victoria Snow) and The Music Company's Receptionist/Marsden's Daughter Stephanie Goodison (Lindy Booth) are the anonymous buyer(s). Getting his music back helps Marsden to get his daughter back. Pete and Myka take the artifact recording and as Pete tells Myka the robberies are not their problem the recording is. Maybe Belski and The FBI will find the "robbers' maybe they won't that question is left in the air. I remember when I watched the episode the first time when it originally aired having mixed thoughts about letting the "robbers" go. The Warehouse team's concern is only in retrieving the artifacts, not all the police actions.

In trying to track the hacker further Artie experiences a shock that shows him some sort of mysterious vision/flashback.

This episode is the second of the series shown in sequence and Peta and Myka have clicked well as partners. I'm not really sure how much time has passed between the pilot episode and this one but it seems to have been enough for them to be comfortable relying on one another while on missions. It is interesting to note that in these early episodes Pete and Myka share one Farnswroth (apparently there are only three in existence the one they use, Artie's on one that Mrs. Frederic has) and one Tesla Gun an only prototype. There is a limited battery life for the power source of the Tesla so they have to use it cautiously.

I give this episode 3.5 Warehouse artifacts ***.5  

Warehouse 13 Wednseday: Pilot

EPISODE 1.1 "Pilot"

Original Air Date: 07 July 2009

ARTIE: "Miss Bering, Mr. Lattimer Welcome to Warehouse 13...

I'm thrilled you're on the team. "

MYKA: "What Team? What is this place?"

ARTIE: "Officially K39tripleZ on the North American Grid,
but I like to think of it as America's Attic."

Warning: This review may contain spoilers
(and may be a bit lengthy since it was a two-hour episode)

This is where it all began your "invitation to endless wonder". When the concept/basic plot premise for Warehouse 13 was first announced many (including myself) noticed it was similar to the late 1980s television series "Friday The 13th" (AKA: "Friday's Curse"), not to be confused with nor is it affiliated with the movie series of the same name with that Jason freak. Some call it a rip off I do not. The basic concept of retrieving artifacts that are cursed or have magic or psychic properties is the same, and you have a middle aged man taking the lead with a young male and female partner team that do the searching. That is basically where things end, the details on who they are and why they do it is slightly different. For WH13 all the magic/psychic artifacts once found are "neutralized" and then stored in a warehouse which is technically run by the government under a super top secret black ops department. As opposed to just being tossed into a vault under an antique shop without any neutralization. It has been ages since I've seen FT13 so my details on that show might be slightly off.

Things open at a museum in Washington DC, the Capital Museum of Natural History (It is supposed to be the Smithsonian Natural History Museum) we meet Secret Service Agent Myka Bering (Joanne Kelly) as she waits to meet up with Chet Greenfield (William Colgate) the museum curator for the umpteenth time to make the final security arrangements for the President's arrival at a reception of some sort at the Museum. Myka is very organized and has an eye for detail, later it is mentioned that she has eidetic memory (Photographic memory). During their final sweep tour Mr. Greenfield takes Myka to a lab were Gordon Letanik (Rauol Bhaneja) is cleaning an Aztec Blood Stone (which is the first of several "artifacts" for the episode). Myka informs them that some of the displays need to be moved because they are blocking access to an exit. After Greenfield and Myka leave the room Gordon drops a tool in the mouth of the stone and while trying to retrieve it cuts his finger on one of the glass teeth of the face on the stone.

Our introduction to Pete Lattimer (Eddie McClintock) is an intimate one as he is with his girlfriend (or girlfriend of the moment) Kacey (Kristina Pesic). She sees his father's fireman badge hanging by his bed and she thinks he is a fireman. He is actually another Secret Service Agent assigned to the Museum detail that Myka is in charge of security for.

At the Museum reception several things happen, of course. Gordon gets possessed by the blood stone his eyes turn bloodshot and his finger wound continues to bleed. Pete senses something is "off" he explains to Myka he gets "vibes". A mysterious man with a bag, who turns out to be Arthur "Artie" Nielsen (Saul Rubenik) enters the museum and in an isolated hallway knocks out one of the Secret Service Men with a ray gun (which is later explained to be a Tesla Stun Gun, an artifact which will be a useful tool for the Warehouse Team). Pete notices blood coming from the stone but nobody listens to him, he takes it just as Kacey who is one of the caterers/party servers sees him and asks what he is doing there, he says working and then Mr. Greenfield starts to approach him and he slips out saying secret service business. Myka notices the blood trail from Gordon as he takes out a stone knife and makes an attack at an ambassador with a stone knife. After a bit of a struggle Myka stops him. Pete meanwhile has gone up to another floor where he trips and the blood stone rolls to the feet of Artie who neutralizes the stone with some sort of top piece, the blinding flash stuns Pete long enough for Artie to get away.

Pete's boss Daniel Dickenson (Simon Reynolds) not believing his story of the theft of the blood stone, suspends him with pay. Dejected Pete returns home to find a mysterious woman Mrs. Irene Frederic (CCH Pounder), along with her driver/body guard (Jung-Yul Kim). Mrs. Frederic informs him that he has been re-assigned to a position in South Dakota. Pete arrives at the designated location a huge wasteland with a strange looking warehouse set into the hillside. He is joined by Myka, who had a visit from Mrs. Frederic as well, and after seeing Pete is convinced there is some kind of screw-up. Soon Artie shows up with a strange rod contraption, he explains he was fixing the F.I.S.H. (a device that is mentioned a few times later during the series and will actually be shown and explained in Season 4) and formally introduces himself and tells them he will explain everything inside. Tentatively they follow and they are given a nickel tour of the warehouse. Pete is shown an old photograph of some warehouse agents with Mrs. Frederic who still looks the same age, meanwhile in a huff Myka has gone out to call Dickenson to try to get things straightened out so she can return to DC. Later they are told they will be staying at Leena's Bread and Breakfast while on their new assignment. There they meet Leena (Genelle Williams) and settle in before their first assignment as Warehouse Agents.

For their first assignment Pete and Myka are sent to Seever City, Iowa to investigate a strange case about a college boy named Cody Thomas (Dillon Casey) who attacked his girlfriend Emily Krueger (Sarah Allen). Part of their arsenal of tools they are given a high-tech steampunk video communications device called a Farnsworth, and a neutralizing kit. While they interview Cody he gets very violent and says something in an old form of Italian. With the help of a professor at the college Professor Ed Marzotto (Michael Boatman) Pete and Myka get a translation of what Cody said, they suspect, however, that the professor isn't telling the complete truth. Artie researches and discovers the artifact they need to find, at around the same time that Pete and Myka learn who has the artifact, Cody's lawyer Lorna Soliday (Sherry Miller). The artifact they need to find is a comb Lucrezia Borgia's comb which has hypnotic powers that basically gives the user control over others. The energy/power is activated by a specific phrase spoken in old Italian, the phrase that Cody had been saying just before he went berserk. At some sort of party for a play Soliday uses the combs power to hypnotize the crowd, Pete and Myka arrive and eventually get the artifact comb neutralized to save the day and Emily's life.

At the end of the day Dickenson who has been in contact with Mrs. Frederic, calls Myka and informs her that Pete's transfer to the Warehouse is permanent, but that she can return to DC he gives her only about five seconds to think about it, as she is considering it Mrs. Frederic who is still with Dickenson is counting down.

All in all I loved the pilot episode for WH13, however, I agree with others who have reviewed the pilot that a full two-hour (technically only one hour and a half) debut was a bit lengthy choppy in parts and dragged some. True there is a lot of exposition and the usual minutia that goes with exposition, but those aren't really the parts that drag, it's the going back and forth between the actions of the supporting characters and Pete and Myka's investigation that seems to drag it seemed they wanted to set up all the relationships before actually getting around to the action with the artifact.

I give this episode 4 Warehouse artifacts ****

Warehouse 13 Wednesday: Back To The Beginning

WAREHOUSE 13 WEDNESDAY:

BACK TO THE BEGINNING

Episode Reviews

NOTE: There is no episode review in this post, it is an introduction to the episode reviews series of  posts.

In May of this year (2013) the Sci-Fi Channel, excuse me "SyFy", announced that they were pulling the plug on this, one of my favorite shows, and one of the few current shows I watch. They announced they were renewing the show for a fifth season, but it would be a very short six episode season (their usual seasons are 13 episodes, we got a bonus of a 20 episode 4th season). This right around the time they were starting to show the second half of Season 4.

In an effort to show support for the show and in a little protest for it's cancellation I started up two features here at Kirk's Knook: Warehouse 13 Wednesday (what you are reading right now) and Myka Monday. So far I've been pretty diligent in keeping up with them each week. On Mondays at 5:00 PM EST when new Episodes are being aired or earlier at 12:00 PM if no new episode is being shown I post a picture of Joanne as Myka. I will try to continue that feature even after the show is long gone. Then on Wednesdays at 12:00 PM I have posted my review of the episode that had aired that Monday complete with a few screenshots from the episode.

In order to keep that up for this feature (Warehouse 13 Wednesday) I will re-watch the episodes from the previous seasons via the DVDs*. I should be able to watch several episodes per week, review them and have a nice posting queue so that I don't miss a week or get stressed out with my self appointed deadline. It also allows for me to do reviews for other shows/DVDs in my to watch list/pile. By the time the show returns for its all too short six episode Season 5 I should be almost caught up with all the previous reviews. Any remaining episode reviews will have to wait to be posted till after the conclusion of Season 5.

My process for the reviews is pretty simple but time consuming. While watching the episode I have a pad and pen handy so I can write down any lines of dialogue that are funny or strike my fancy as being fun to quote. I also jot down any terms, names or things I think might be useful to talk about. After the episode is over, (and if I am not too tired on Monday night) I start writing the draft for my review here at Blogger. Usually I use the assistance of a few websites for references I need of either the show, the actors or some of the artifacts and their names. There is a wonderful reference site called: Warehouse 13 Wiki. It has a lot of useful information about the show. I also use IMDb.com for background on guest actors and a few early Tuesday Morning (or Monday evening) reviews along with a stream of the episode (for these past episodes I'll just use my DVD) to rewatch bits to help with descriptions, titles, names whatever might help me. I have also used the video streams for screen captures in case episode photos already posted are not interesting enough for me, which they usually are not. Plus I don't want to use the same 2 or 3 images everyone else has been using.

My reviews often contain spoilers, I try not to reveal too much but in the case of the last few I needed to reveal spoilers from previous episodes I wanted to keep as spoilers, but couldn't because the episode I was reviewing used the spoiler as a main plot story arc. At the end of the review I try to give a least a final thought either about something that is being foreshadowed or my general take on that episode. Finally I rate the episode on a scale of 1 to 5 "Warehouse Artifacts" (instead of stars). Unfortunately I don't have a neat little artifact graphic that would work well (maybe a wooden crate? A Tesla Gun? A Farnsworth?) so I use the standard asterisk/star * Sometimes I use half artifacts (.5) and once used a .4 since the episode was just a little bit lower than a complete half an artifact.

Once the review is "finished" for my purposes I schedule it for posting. After it has been posted I add the link to the review on my Warehouse 13 Episodes list page along with the artifact rating. So far the average rating is about 3.5 (3.49 well really 3.4875 or there about)

Don't forget to check out my "Myka Monday" posts, where each Monday (usually) I show a picture of the beautiful Joanne Kelly as Myka Bering. The challenge is to use ONLY images of her as Myka from the show, or possibly on set not candid photos or from other roles she has performed.

*The last episode of Season 3 (its Christmas episode) "The Greatest Gift" is NOT available on R1 DVDs so I will probably have to review that one from an online source, or if I ever get a R2 DVD (and a multi-region player. I had one but it died and I'm not sure if my laptop can handle other regions.) Maybe they will include that on the final Season 5 DVDs?

DVD Review: 45

.45 (2006) R

***

WARNING: This review might contain SPOILERS!

LIZ: "You are a woman, You have POWER and you need to use it. Lips, Tits, Hips. All Woman"

I was pleasantly surprised by this film. I bought it sight unseen used from Ebay for only .50¢ (+ $3.00 postage). I didn't realize at the time of purchase that I was going to receive a previously RENTED copy (the Ebay listing said it was used but didn't mention it was a previous rental which is risky) from Wally World video (the disc hub has printing that was marked out with a sharpie/magic marker that had a phone number and "WALLY WORLD Video" on it) So at first I thought I might have a crappy copy with the extras deleted but fortunately the Disc plays fine and all the extras are still there not blocked or deleted.

As for the plot of the film judging from the cover I thought for sure it was going to be a La Femme Nikita/ Point of No Return spy-espionage action film, but it is not like that at all. It is an urban drama with mild violence, some gun play a bit of sex and tons of the F-Bomb.

Milla Jovovich plays Kat a young woman who lives in a bad neighborhood of New York with bad boy Big Al (Angus Macfadyen) who is the gun running/black market crime king of the neighborhood. Kat stays with Al because of their shared love of guns and the fantastic sex due in part to his massive manhood. At first things are OK even though Al is a tough alpha male and short tempered, but Kat soon realizes that she needs to get out of the abusive relationship. Part of the tension comes from her best friend Vic (Sarah Strange) a lesbian and the most sensible of the circle of friends that Kat has, but Al can't stand her. Vic also happens to be in love with Kat but knows she can't have her. Also in love with Kat is Reilly (Stephen Dorff) an associate/friend of Al who is starting to turn over a new leaf and trying to avoid the dark path that Al is on. Reilly is also attracted to Vic and tries his charms on her but fails a few times.

After a huge round of abuse from Al that gets him arrested and the attention of social service counselor Liz (Aisha Tyler) Kat starts to realize the only way she can make her dreams of getting out of the neighborhood is to get away from Al. At one point Vic tells Reilly that if he kills Al she'll sleep with him, he tells her that he couldn't  kill Al he couldn't "do" a friend. He does start to take it into serious consideration though. Kat eventually gets her revenge on Al by setting him up for the murder of one of his associates.

As I said I was pleasantly surprised by this film, however, the use of some straight to the camera "interview" type monologues I didn't like. They were useful in moving the plot along and by giving some exposition and needed background info on the main characters, but I didn't like them. The story could have been told without them but the director chose that style to tell the tale. The entire film has bookend monologues by Kat to show the audience that she made her dreams a reality. During the commentary the director/writer said for some scenes he only had one camera available, and would have preferred to have two to capture more of the action.

Starring: Milla Jovovich, Angus Macfadyen, Stephen Dorff, Sarah Strange, Aisha Tyler

Directed by: Gary Lennon

TH!NKFilm

DVD Release Date: 24 April 2007

Region 1

1 Disc - 97 Minutes

I give the film itself 3 stars *** and the DVD for it's quality 3.5 stars ***.5 I would have liked the DVD to have had English subtitles, the disc itself only has Spanish, fortunately my TVs closed caption subtitles worked for this disc.

Source Code: DVD Review

Colter Stevens: It's the same dream, but it's different!
Christina Warren: Deep. I hope it's different. I feel the same way.

Source Code (2011) PG-13

****

WARNING: This review might contain SPOILERS!

Source Code - When I first saw trailers for this film my first reaction was the plot was similar to the main plot device for the television show Seven Days, because of the time limit of how far back the "time traveler" goes, except it isn't quite the same thing. In the show it was the technology that limited the trips to only 7 days into the past, in this movie the main character goes back to earlier in the day but is limited to 8 minutes in the past due to the "source code" which is more like going into a Matrix of some kind than a time travel machine. I also saw similarities to the show Quantum Leap starring Scott Bakula who makes a vocal appearance in this film as the main character's father in a nod to Quantum Leap. The main character or at least his mind sort of "leaps" into another character via the technology of the "source code".

Bare with me here for a moment. The "technology" or science that allows for source code traveling is more sort of a biotechnology than mechanical technology. The basic gist is that after a person is clinically dead there is still some brain activity for approximately eight minutes after death. The source code technology allows someone to tap into or "leap" into that persons final memories and allows for them to "live in" that person's final moments of life. It also allows the "leaper" to go back multiple times. They don't state a specific number of leap attempts that can be made but they seem to indicate there are limits, due to the deterioration of the dead subjects brain activity.

Jake Gyllenhaal plays Colter Stevens the protagonist a US Army helicopter pilot who last recalls being stationed in Afghanistan and the source code "leaper". He wakes up on a train as someone else, who he later learns is one of the victims on the train when it is blown up by a terrorist outside of Chicago and that it was believed to be just the beginning of a bigger terrifying plan. It was determined that the train had been bombed remotely by a former passenger on the train. Colter's mission is to find out who bombed the train and stop them before more bombs go off. Along the way he learns that he is in the body of a man named Sean Frentress and the woman who is sitting across from him is a friend of Sean's named Christina Warren (Michelle Monaghan).

After the bomb goes off Colter finds himself in a dark chamber that slightly resembles a larger version of his copter's cockpit. He learns that the isolation chamber he is in is part of some military operation. He is told he is in a place called "belegerd castle" a part of some experiment called "The Source Code" by a female Captain Goodwin (Vera Farmiga). Goodwin briefs him on his mission to locate the bomb and try to determin who put it there. Just when he thinks he knows what is going on he is sent back onboard the train to relive "his" or rather Sean's last 8 minutes. Along the way Colter meets the creator of The Source Code Project a Dr. Rutledge (Jeffrey Wright).

Colter falls in love with Christina and then his main goal is to figure out how he can save her and the other passengers. Rutledge and Goodwin inform him that stopping the bombing is NOT his mission and that he needs to concentrate on finding the bomber. Of course he does manage to find a way to save the day and change the future a bit.

I really enjoyed this film. The time limit of the traveling reminded me as I said of Seven Days. Colter's waking in the body of someone else reminded me of Quantum Leap. There is even a slight nod to the show both in the casting of Scott Bakula as Colter's father and a scene with a mirror when Colter first learns he is in another body.
Both of the main actresses Monaghan and Farmiga are beautiful and give great performances. The interaction between Monaghan and Gyllenhaal was also very good. They have a great chemistry which shows and in the extras on the DVD is talked about by the actors and the director.

Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Michelle Monaghan, Vera Farmiga

Directed by: Duncan Jones

Summit Entertainment

DVD Release Date: 26 July 2011

Region 1

1 Disc - 93 Minutes

G.I. JOE: The Rise Of Cobra

Destro: What did you say your unit was called?

General Hawk: I didn't.

I watched my DVD copy of the 2009 G.I. Joe: The Rise Of Cobra Movie. This is a mini-review first because I don't feel like giving a full fledged review and second because I need to crank out a blog entry before July comes around.


G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra: Is a very cool action adventure movie. Plenty of testosterone, and some estrogen in this guys flick. Basically it is based on the characters that Hasbro toys created in the early 1980s for the rebooted line of G.I. Joe Action figures. When they shrunk the 12" "Boys Doll" down to a little 3" action figure. The basic plot line deals with some nanotechnology war heads being stolen by The "Joes" arch-enemy group Cobra. The only things that really brings the movie down is some of the flashbacks that tell each of the main characters and supporting characters origins and background stories. These stories give audience viewers who are not familiar with the newer G.I. Joe (A Real American Hero) characters and stories that were told in comic books, a cartoon series and an animated movie or two.

Now the real reason(s) I like this film. Well not the only reasons but it is nice to have some eye candy while having an action movie frat party.

One of the things that Hasbro did when they created the mini Joes toys was to have some female characters. For "The Joes" the good guys there is sexy redhead Scarlett.


Brought to life in the movie by the lovely Rachel Nichols. I wonder how single she is if she is?


Reason enough? I thought so.


Then for the villainess er Baroness the just a lovely and sexy Sienna Miller.


And here is some of the action sort of.


As I said just a sort of mini-review. Oh I almost forgot one of the things I wanted to mention. Christopher Eccleston (of Doctor Who fame as Doctor Number Nine) plays the main bad guy James McCullen/ Destro. Overall I liked the film, even if you take the women out of the equation. I gave the film 4.5 out of 5.

I'm Soooooooooooooooooooooo Tired.

Argh. I want to work on populating my book collection at bibliophil.org, but I'm too tired. I did manage to watch a DVD, a rental from Netflix.

Harry Chapin: Rockpalast Live (1977). It is a studio recorded concert taped in Germany. It was taped during Harry's Dance Band on the Titanic Tour. It is generally good quality video and sound, not great but generally good. It even has a version of Six-String Orchestra, which Harry hardly did in the later years. All in all it rates a 3 out of 5. As a Chapin Fan I personally give the viewing experience a 5 but as a DVD critic I have to take a few points off for some of the video quality, and the sound. Now the sound is OK for the time but there were a few songs where the balance between voices and instruments wasn't quite right. OK so now I'm being picky. I really should have skipped renting this one, and just gone ahead and purchased a copy. I still need to get a copy of Remember when: The Anthology DVD as well as this one. ACK! I don't know if it is just the song or the song and the fact I miss Harry that I got choked up during Corey's Coming. That is one of my fave songs next to Six String Orchestra, Bananas, and Circle.

OK so me thinks that is it for this one.... Oh I'm still in the process of reading the two-in-one Pulp Sci-Fi book by John Brunner The Space-Time Juggler/The Astronauts Must Not Land. I am now reading the Astronauts side. You see this particular edition is a two-in-one pulp fiction/sci-fi news-stand edition that is designed so that after you read one story you flip the book over to read the other story. So the second story is upside down when your reading the first story. The book has two front covers if you think about it, the back cover which is upside when when you are reading the first story, is the front cover for the second story. You actually don't read the book cover to cover you read it cover to middle then cover to middle. It was published in 1963. When I finish this second story, which I think is the better of the two, I will give my "A recent read" book review. This Astronaut story so far has may standard early 1960s elements, I think it may have been made into a Twilight Zone or Outer Limits Episode. If it wasn't it probably should have been.

Let's Play Ball!

THEY'RE BACK!

I am so psyched. OK well I'm not that nuts right now, maybe after I get back into the swing of the baseball fan role. As Major League Baseball (MLB) fans know the Montreal Expos were sold and moved to Washington DC to debut as the Washington Nationals for the 2005 season. Part of my preparation for the team's sophomore season has been watching the DVD Baseball Returns: Washington Nationals Inaugural Season 2005

I still need to watch the Great Plays of the season highlights and some of the Behind the scenes stuff but what I have watched brought back memories of the season. They also have the complete season stats for the team and the individual players, watching that would take ages, so I just touched on some of them.

One of the things that I found slightly annoying is for the still image Photo Gallery section, the music track they have playing is only something like 20 seconds long, so you keep hearing the music loop crescendo then loop back. The gallery is something like 10 minutes long or so, but it has some pretty neat images.

Another thing that drove me batty with this is in the players section, where they have a photo of the player show his number and basic personal stats (Position, Hometown, bithdate, Batting/Throwing hand, years in majors etc...) the way they flash the photos at first I thought I had a faulty disc becuase of the flashy jittering. OH well you can't have everything.

Watching this type of DVD is akin to reading an encyclopedia, you don't really read, in this case watch, the whole thing you just sort of hit the best bits and then if there is time go back over the bibliography and the background charts. At any rate it is a very good reference source for Washington Nationals fans. Plus with some of the disturbing news of the legal issue over the team's name, the problem with a new stadium, and the ownership status of the team, the thing might become a bigger collector's item for yet another defunct baseball team from DC. I hope it doesn't come to that, but who knows.