DVD Review - VAN HELSING

I had some reservations about buying Van Helsing. I'd heard lots of bad reviews (it's got a 5.3 user rating on IMDB) and frankly I didn't want a retelling of the Dracula, Frankenstein, and Wolfman mythos. They're great stories, classics, archtypes, and I don't want them blended into one plotline (except for in The Monster Squad, 1987). But everytime I saw something I didn't like about this film, something else pulled me back in.

First the negative. It's a CG orgy. I thing there's some CG on virtually every shot. I understand using CG on wolfman, Dracula's brides, and the gone-to-soon Dr. Jeckell. But everytime Van Helsing and friends performed anything resembling a stunt, the film turned into a videogame. This is what ruined Matrix Reloaded and Revolution. Van Helsing swings from a rope, he's CG, he does a backflip, he's CG, he stands around looking grim and utters some horrible dialogue, he's CG (well, almost). Was the stuntman union on strike when they filmed this? There's also way to much "swinging on a rope/chain" going on here. I need to go back and count, but it must happen more in Van Helsing then in Batman and Spider-man combined. And of course, it's all CG. The dialogue is also VERY weak. Van Helsing (Hugh Jackman) and Anna (Kate Beckinsale) have virtually nothing good to say to each other. And when they do interact it's line's like "Nothing's faster then Transylvanian Horses, not even Werewolves." Five minutes later the Wolfman catches up to them. The actor portraying Dracula (Richard Roxburgh) is weak. And after an incredible introduction during the black-and-white opening of the movie, Frankenstein's Monster turns into a bible-quoting wimp. Also there are some unresolved plot holes regarding Van Helsing's past (which he doesn't remember ala Wolverine and his past relationship with Dracula). On to the good stuff.

The story works. It makes sense. Van Helsing as a supernatural-evil-batteling-007 employed by the Vatican is a good story, especially in light of popular liturature like Angels & Demons, and The DaVinci Code. He takes out Dr. Jeckell in the best action sequence in the film. He uses high tech (for the turn of the century) gadgets and has a "Q" (David Wenham as Carl "I'm still only a friar!") The story goes like this: Dracula is funding Dr. Frankenstein's experimants to create life in order to re-animate his children (which are born dead since, well, he's undead. Makes sense, see?) Franky creates his monster, then is killed by Dracula. Igor turns out to be Dracula's pawn. The Monster wakes up, does something really cool to Drac, and flees from a mob of torch wielding peasents with the body of his father. They corner him in the windmill and burn it down. All of this is in black and white and is absolutely beautiful. Cut to one year later, Van Helsing is sent to stop Drac from killing Anna, the last of a line of Gypsy Royalty whose family swore to stop Drac. And let me state here that Kate Beckinsale is the most stunning woman in film today (cheesy Transylvanian accent aside). I fell in love with her in Serendipity (2001) and Pearl Harbor (2001) and she looks damn good in tight pants and some knee high boots with very high heels. They fight Wolfman (Drac's servant), his three Brides (super hot whore-vampires), and some unexplained wierd gas mask wearing trolls. It's good, fun stuff.

But the best aspect of this film is the music. It is scored by Alan Silvestri (just look up his impressive resume`). There's this theme whenever Van Helsing rides/runs off somewhere with some thundering drums and a driving classical guitar line. It's still stuck in my head. The score elevates every scene of the movie. Truly a masterful and award deserving job by Mr. Silvestri.

Van Helsing was directed by Stephen Sommers (The Mummy movies) and feels just as fun as those. He's a good director that could be great if he wouldn't depend on the damn CG so much. Rent it, buy it, enjoy it for what it is. A monster movie. It ain't Shakespeare folks.

The Sneaky Cheetah's Grade: B-

Miss Biscuitville, U.S.A.

I spent this last weekend in High Point, North Carolina at the Miss North Carolina USA pageant. I was employed as a videographer and basically had to capture on video everything these young women did including rehearsals, clowning around, and the pageant itself. Great situation, right? In a hotel for the weekend with a legitimate reason to hang around 120 gorgeous girls. Oh, wait, too bad I'm 28, married, and fat. This would have been a dream vacation if I was 21........well I still had fun and made some jack to boot. But what I bring away from this weekend , more then anything I saw, was.....Biscuits. I ate more biscuits then ever before in my life! It started out innocently enough. My two co-workers (Brett and Cecil) and I passed a KFC-looking place called Biscuitville. WOW! We just had to stop and try it! And wouldn't you know it, they served biscuits. And nothing but Biscuits! You really only got a choice of what you wanted INSIDE your biscuit. Sausage, Egg, chicken, steak, chicken fried steak, you name it, they slammed it in a biscuit and charged you $3. The rest of the time, we depended on the catering supplied to the girls for our meals. Well, on Saturday, after a meager lunch of ham and cheese sandwiches, we scrounged for some food and found some...Biscuits. Burger King Biscuits to be exact. I had 2. they were cold. Well we didn't have time for a proper dinner, so we asked on of the pageant assistants to get us some of the food from the contestents dressing room. She came back with some...Biscuits. The were Burger King, but they were hot. By this time, i was at my biscuit limit. The pageant started and when the top 15 came out in their evening gowns, they lead a big poodle on stage. And what do you suppose the name of the poodle was ........... Fifi? ....... No ........... it was ................................................... BISCUIT!

movie review - FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS

The greatest football movie I've ever seen. Nothing else is even close. If you played high school football, this movie will get to you. In fact, during the movie, I was having flashbacks to my senior year, hearing speeches my coach gave me, remembering what it was like to be a senior, to wear that purple jacket with the big yellow "L." And yes, this movie will make guys cry. I didn't but it was close. And the guy I went with got teary.

Anyway, here's the plot, based on a true story. Set in 1988, a school in Odessa Texas is gearing up for another great football season. We're following 3 time state champ Permian High. Their mascot is the panthers, but for some reason, "mojo" is written on everything. Well since most readers of this grew up in Louisiana, we know how real high school football is. But in Texas, it's ten times more important. Gary Gaines (Billy Bob Thorton) is the second year coach that makes more money then the principle. His team is lead by an all-american running back and public enemy wannabe Boobie Miles (Derek Luke). The quarterback, Mike Winchell (Lucas Black), is a serious mama's boy who's expected to not fumble as he hands it off to Boobie. And he never smiles. The backup runningback, Don Billingsley (Garrat Hedlund) fumbles a lot and gets abused numerous times by his alcoholic and former-state-champ-runningback-dad (an impressive Tim McGraw). On defense, we have the stong safety Brian Chavez (Jay Hernandez) who's going to Harvard after graduation, and lineman Ivory Christian (Lee Jackson) who doesn't talk to anyone and is called "preacher-boy" by Boobie. Well, after scoring 5 touchdowns in the first game, Boobie tears his ACL, and a team built around one guy must step up and find new ways to win. The film gives equal time to the coach and the players, and it never becomes an "X's and O's" movie about football. It's character driven. And the relatively unknown actors makes it seem that you're never looking at movie stars, just some kids in high school. There are many powerful scenes and powerful performances and the football action is as good as anything made. And the payoff for experiencing all these emotion ups and downs is the state championship game, which is given a full quarter of the movie. It feels like you relly watched an entire game by the end of it. Firday Night Lights was directed by Peter Berg, who's only other film directing credits are the awful "Very Bad Thing (IMDB score = 5.7), and "The Rundown (6.5)," which I haven't seen. He does an outstanding job, giving the movie a documentary feel. The film is grainy and not polished, and there are plenty of establishing shots in between the mini-episodes as the football season goes on. And during the games, you don't get any shots that a normal football television crew couldn't get. No helmet cams or camera on the back of the runner shots. Just sidelines and endzones. This is what gives it the feeling of watching a real game here.

Go see this movie! Even non football fans will be sucked into this story. This is the best movie I've seen all year folks. IMDB.com's user rating here is 7.2 (on a scale of 10), and usually anything over a seven is great! Go see this now, in the theater, on a friday night.

The Sneaky Cheetah's Grade: A

More Chicks

Here's another photo of my infamous night with three VERY drunk Dixie Chicks. NOOTCH! As you can see, I'm quite bored and need some practice with photoshop.

Ken Camaniti, R.I.P.

I was bummed for a few minutes when I found out Christopher Reeve died last night, but I was really shocked when I heard Ken Caminiti former Houston Astro and NL MVP died of a heart attack last night at the age of 41. In the 80's and early 90's, Caminiti was the shit at third base. Nobody could backhand a shot down the line, then gun it to first from foul territory like him. It was awesome to see. He played with Houston in the years when i'd go see them play for a weekend every summer (usually against the Cubbies). In those good old days of playing Sega Baseball, Caminit was ALWAYS the third baseman I went for. I had tons of Caminiti baseball cards (stil do i think), but sadly his legacy was tarnished when he admitted to using steroids especially during his MVP season. then he came out and said half the players in baseball use the juice. This sparked the steroid witch hunt in baseball (which is a good thing), and resulted in Sosa, Giambi, and Bagwell all getting much smaller. In 15 years, his career stats BA is .272, 239 HR, 983 RBI's. His best season was by far 1996 when he led the Padres to the World Series, batting .326 with 40 HR and 130 RBI's. On of my Baseball Legends, Ken Caminiti, R.I.P.

The Love of My Life: Magnum P.I.

So, the love affair began like this. I got a small TV for Christmas when I was like 11 or 12, no cable, just some really good rabbit ears. The kind of TV with big knobs to change the channel and it'd make that cool "KaThunk-a-Thunk" noise when you'd turn 'em. Anyway, Id turn on the TV to fall asleep and on Fox (in the very early days of Fox) was Magnum P.I. Mon-Fri, in syndication. I faithfully watched Magnum every night before bed. Eventually, the network started airing something else (I think Arsenio started), and Magnum disappeared from my life. It wasn't until 1995 that i rediscovered Magnum. I was a sophomore at UL Lafayette (Honestly I was a Junior there for like 4 years, i don't know how that was possible). I lived in the roach infested Beau Chene apartment, which were close enough to campus to ride my bike to class. I had a break between 12 and 2 and would bike home for lunch. My roommate Scotty D also had a break at that time, so we sat down in the living room for lunch, flipped on the tube, and there, in all his Hawaiian shirted, ferrari driving, getting chased by Zeus and Apollo glory, was Magnum, P.I. We watched everyday, and next semester, we scheduled our classes so we'd be off at noon, just to watch Magnum. I do believe I've seen every episode ever, so imagine the pure joy that hit me when I found out Season 1 was out on DVD.

Here's a synopsis of the show from tvtome.com

Former Naval Intelligence officer Thomas Magnum resigns his commission to become a private investigator on the north shore of Oahu, Hawaii. He lands a home in the guest house on the estate of millionaire author Robin Masters in exchange for testing the estate's security, but is forced to work under the strict and ever watchful eye of Jonathan Higgins, a former British Army soldier who serves as the estate manager, and constantly patrols the grounds with his two "lads" Zeus and Apollo, who are loyally trained Doberman Pinschers always ready to pounce on Magnum.
Magnum makes good use of the perks that come with working on the estate, including driving Masters' sporty red 308 GTS Ferrari, Audi, and all-terrain Jimmy, as well as equipment such as high-end cameras and telescopes. Of course, all of these expensive toys are under the keen scrutiny of Higgins, and Thomas often finds himself at the end of Higgins' hard bargaining to secure their loan. Although Magnum's carefree ways often clash with Higgins' stricter manner, their mutual respect forms a strong basis for their working relationship.
Two of Magnum's former Vietnam comrades and friends live and work nearby. T.C. Calvin owns "Island Hoppers", a helicopter tour company, and Rick Wright manages the King Kamehameha Club, an exclusive beach front club. T.C.'s Piloting skills and Rick's shady underworld contacts often get them roped into Magnum's cases. Others in Magnum's circle include Naval officers Mac MacReynolds, Maggie Pool, and Buck Greene; Hawaii P.D. officers Nolan Page and Yoshi Tanaka; Dr. Ibold; Higgins' fellow Brit Agatha Chumley; Rick's underworld contact "Ice Pick"; and Deputy D.A. Carol Baldwin.
Robin Masters was never fully seen, ultimately leading Magnum to the conclusion that Higgins was actually Masters, though this theory was never fully proven. The show was a huge hit, with the first five seasons ranking in the top 20 shows in the U.S. ratings each year, thanks to its wide range of stories appealing to a broad cross section of fans, The series ranged from broad slapstick comedy and farce, to deep, thoughtful drama, to edge-of-the-seat action. The series was widely applauded for being the first to recognize the difficulty Vietnam era soldiers faced in making the readjustment to civilian life. Many episodes touched upon the impact that serving in Vietnam had on Magnum and his friends, as well as echoes to the events of World War II.
The series won many awards, including Emmys and Golden Globes for Selleck and Hillerman.
To put it plainly, Magnum P.I. is the greatest action/drama show ever made. It ran from 1980-88 in the height of the action/drama craze of television.

back to me:
And what a run it was. There is nothing on TV like this now. Today's action shows (24, Alias) take themselves way too seriously, while today's best crime dramas (CSI, Law & Order) forgo deep character development for intricate but formulaic plots. You must compare Magnum to shows in it's era. It's truly rare how re-watchable Magnum is. Just try watching other 80's action shows these days. The Dukes of Hazard, Knight Rider, and the A-team are all painful to watch now that I'm no longer a kid.

Season one has some great episode's with some awesome guest stars, like Ted Danson, Robert Loggia, and Judge Reinhold. But it's the shows intricate, re-occurring themes that make it a joy to watch. Like Magnum's internal monologue when he's trying to pick a lock, (don't look at the dogs, work the lock!) an the way he looks at the camera and speaks to the audience, breaking the "third wall." The flashbacks to 'Nam. The constant trading of perks with Higgins for favors, and the way T.C. always asks for gas money when they're flying in the Island Hoppers Chopper. And I smile every time Higgins talks about "the lads."

I'm done with all of season 1's episodes and i will be the first one in line for season 2. If universal decides to release it.

Dixie Cups

This really happened. The Blonde with the fiddle was the best. Rraawwwww!