Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Review Updated: Frogs



I revisit (and rewrote) one of the first few reviews I did for the site.

Frogs

Ribbit.
-Jason

Monday, August 27, 2007

Jason Soto Movie Show Episode 1

This is the pilot episode for my new public access TV show in Hammond, Indiana. I hope you guys like it:



There will be more episodes.
Enjoy!
-Jason

Sunday, August 19, 2007

New Review: Beast of Yucca Flats



Words. Review. Horrible movie. Something with wheels.

Beast of Yucca Flats

Thanks. Flag on the moon.
-Jason

Saturday, August 18, 2007

One Down, 20 more to Go

A few weeks ago I wrote a blog about movies that people can't believe that I haven't seen yet. I finally got to one on the list:
The Bourne Identity

I won't give a full review of it, just my thoughts.

I thought it was funny anytime something happened Bourne would get a hunch someone was about to kill him. And oddly enough, he'd be right. A good example of this is when he and that chick he hooks up with Marie are at some dude's house and the dude's kid is like "the dog is missing." This causes Bourne to go into full on panic mode and scream out "GET IN THE BASEMENT NOW!!!!!" and he grabs a gun and blows shit up. And before you think Bourne is out of his fuckin mind, we see Mute Clive Owen up in the hills.

So....what happened to the dog? Why is the dog gone missing a sign that Mute Clive Owen is there? Are we suppose to assume he killed the dog? I don't get it and it wasn't explained.

Another thing that was weird was Julia Stiles character. She was just...there. She didn't do anything. She barely interacted with anyone else, except for Mute Clive Owen. (Why do I keep calling him that? If you seen the movie, you should know what I mean. If not, he doesn't say one word until Bourne confronts him.) And I dont think she was even given a name. She was just named "Chick In Small Dark Room Somewhere Doing Nothing" cause that's all she did. She sat in a room, with headphones and just went "...". And at the end when Chris Cooper (The gay dad from "American Beauty") shows up and is attacked by Bourne, she just stands there. At least attempt to karate chop Bourne's arm or something.

And one final complaint, how in the hell did he make every single car alarm in Paris go off? I mean I know he's suppose to be badass but does that's kind of a weak badass talent. I'm hoping Bourne would keep that out of his resume.

"So, I see you kick ass, good with knives, good with guns, excellent driver. What's this? You have the power to activate every car alarm within a 10 mile radius? Sorry, we don't think you'd fit in with the Justice League of America."

So with that stuff out of the way, let's go to the deleted opening and closing scenes.

The opening doesn't make much sense. It's just Bourne in some city and he's asking people where some chick is at. Then all of the people vanish and he faints. Then...that's it.

The ending kinda sorta explains it. He wakes up in some hotel room, some guy who I don't recall seeing before is talking to him and telling him he can be a free agent if he wants, and leaves. Then it goes into the original theatrical ending, except...not. Here, you can see for yourself.

So overall, I'd give this movie 2 stars. It was ok, I was entertained but I didn't see what the big deal was. There was one pretty cool scene I did like though.



Who knew Matt Damon could kick ass so well?
-Jason

Coming Up in 2009: The Body Snatchers

How many times is the same movie gonna get made? First we get "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" in 1956:


Which from what I can tell is a good enough of a movie. It stars a young Kevin McCarthy (who went one to appear in a bunch more other movies, including "UHF") and it's a creepy ass story: aliens from outer space steal our bodies when we sleep. That's pretty fucked up.

Then 1978 came and we get, well, "Invasion of the Body Snatchers":


This time we get Donald Sutherland and Leonard Nimoy (This movie is so far back that Jeff Goldblum is in it but he doesn't get a mention in the trailer.) This one I have seen and it is a pretty good movie. I'm unsure how the original ends, but this version has the most fucked up ending I've ever seen in a sci-fi/horror movie.

So now it's 2007. And what do we get? "The Invasion". No Body Snatchers. Just "The Invasion":


This time we get the AWESOME star power of Nicole Kidman. Yep, instead of the main lead be a male like in the first two films, this time we focus on a woman. Oh and, her kid. You gotta throw a kid into the mix, you know, for sympathy sakes.

Whoever put this trailer together did a pretty good job cause it actually makes me wanna see it. But I doubt I'm gonna spend 8 or 9 bucks to see it in theater. I'll just wait until it hits the video store.

If you thought I had something snarky to say about remakes, sorry to dissapoint you. But whatever I would say has been said at least a thousand times by other people. I'm also not gonna tell you if you should see this or not. That's up to you. But I would say if you wanna see a good horror/sci-fi movie about aliens taking over our bodies, rent the first two. Especially the Donald Sutherland version.
-Jason

Thursday, August 16, 2007

Updated Review: Warrior of the Lost World ; Bragging Rights

I finally got around to updating the Warrior of the Lost World review. Check it out, yo.
Warrior of the Lost World

And the biggest bestest news ever.

I GOT MENTIONED ON BADMOVIES.ORG!!!

The one site that totally inspired me to do what I do now has finally put a link to my site! You have no idea how awesome this is. This means I should be getting more exposure, which means I really have to work hard on getting this place straightened up. If you haven't yet, you should check it out:
BadMovies.org

-Jason

Friday, August 10, 2007

The Most Original (Sequel) To A Dance Movie Ever!!!!

I'm not sure what the true purpose for Myspace was, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't involve shitty sequels to shitty movies that people have forgotten about by now.

This rant may seem familar. I made a similar one in November 2006 when Van Wilder 2: The Rise of Taj was coming out. My two main complaints, if you remember that far back, was that it was called "Van Wilder" when the character, played by Ryan Reyonlds, doesn't even appear in the movie. And on the Myspace profile for it (which is still up) screened it's comments and only posted positive comments.

Well, the crappy sequel industy strikes again! This time for a movie that I'm sure not a whole lot of people remember. I'm talking about "Step Up". According to imdb.com, it's got a 5.9 rating. To give you some idea how bad this is, on the Bottom 100, at number 100, is The Neverending Story 3, which is currently at a 2.6. I suck at math, so I dunno how the .6 and the .9's figure in, but Step Up is 2 whole ratings up from Neverending Story 3. That's pretty bad.

But that's not gonna stop them! Because we now have..."Step Up 2 The Streets". No, I didn't forget the colon. It's actually called "Step Up 2 The Streets". I'm wonder if Prince co-wrote this. So why does Step Up need a sequel? Did the first one end with a cliffhanger? What the fuck is Step Up about anyway? Let's see what we can find out without having to watch the movie.

According to wikipedia (the most reliable source I can find), this is the plot:
"Step Up is a 2006 dance/romance film directed by Anne Fletcher starring Channing Tatum and Jenna Dewan.
The movie follows the tale of the disadvantaged Tyler Gage (Channing Tatum) and the privileged ballet dancer Nora Clark (Jenna Dewan), who find themselves paired up in a showcase that determines both of their futures. Realizing that they only have one chance, they finally work together. The movie's official website does not have its own domain; rather, it is hosted through MySpace, and it serves as a community that encourages social networking and discussion about the film."


So...it's a dance/romance movie. No wonder i'm getting a headache thinking about this, those are the two least of my favorite genre films, and they teamed up and decided to rape my brain. The wiki-article goes into great detail about the movie but I don't really need to know anymore. Besides the ending. How does this movie end? Is the disadvantaged Tyler Gage (the fuck kinda name is that anyway) surrounded by ballet dancers with machine guns and before we see if Tyler Gage (I think my Dad's Tyler Gage was broke on his car once) makes it out alive, the screen goes black and it says "TO BE CONTINUED..." it big red letter? Lets see.

"At the end Nora and Tyler make up, Mac congratulates him, Lucy and Miles kiss, the dance scout wants to talk to Nora about being in their dance program AND she's interested in Tyler and Director Gordan wants Tyler to finish out the rest of his school year at the Maryland School for the arts."

That's it? Tyler gets to finish school and this Nora chick joins a dance program? That sounds pretty wrapped up to me. Well, ok. I'm sure many people thought "Die Hard" wrapped up pretty good, but we got 3 more sequels. So maybe "Step Up 2: The Streets" continues with Tyler Gage (I should be Jason Gage. Makes me sound 10 times more exciting, don't it?) graduating the Maryland School for the arts (lowercase, they can't afford a capital A) and now he has to, I dunno, fight zombies while dancing his heart out. At least that's what would happen in my version of the script.

Before I go into detail about the Myspace profile for Step Up 2: Not-So-Electric Boogaloo", let's see what Tyler is gonna be up to in the sequel.

"Having grown up in the Maryland School of the Arts, 18-year-old Patrick Collins (Robert Hoffman) feels creatively confined by the restraints of the now, more than ever, commercialized school. He hears of a legendary, underground team dance battle that happens every year called The Streets that only locals have access to (think Fight Club but for dance) and he is by no means a local. When Andie West (Briana Evigan), a 17-year-old B-girl who is part of the best team that competes in The Streets starts to attend MSA, sparks fly and Patrick is let into the underbelly of the Baltimore dance scene."

Wait a minute? Who the fuck is Patrick? I would assume he's Tyler's brother but Tyler's last name is Gage. Patrick's is Collins. The hell? And I see the Maryland School of the Arts finally saved up for that capital A. So Step Up 2: Stepping Again doesn't involve ANY of the original characters. None. And you have no idea how disturbed I am by the mental image I got when I read the words "think Fight Club but for dance". And Patrick better watch out for that underbelly of the Baltimore dance scene. I hear they'll fuck a dude up.

Ok, enough of this. Let's take a look at the Myspace profile that started this rant.

Well, I'm greeted by the most annoying screen in the history of the world. I mean, I visited some god-awful Myspace profiles, but this is just horrible. It's not even in the typical Myspace profile layout. Why do these fucks get a special page for their crappy movie? And why does every single thing immedately start up the instant the page loads, which takes about 20 minutes cause of all the crap on it. Seriously, if you wanna visit this page, start it, then start cooking a Rachael Ray-style meal. When you get back, the page MIGHT be loaded.

So the whole purpose of this profile is they're asking the Myspace community for help in making the movie, according to the annoying banner. I wonder if that means if everybody on Myspace had some fuckin' sense and said "no", this stupid thing wouldn't get made. But unfortunately, that's not the case.

When you scroll down further you see they are offering a contest where you make a video of yourself dancing (but only to the OFFICAL STEP UP 2 SONG BEING PERFORMED BY CASSIE, whoever the hell that is) and send it to them. I can't seem to see what happens if your video is picked. Maybe this Cassie chick will give you a naked picture of her or something. Looking at her pic, I wouldn't mind that.

And the way the friends are listed is pretty funny. Obviously the first guy is the dude who's gonna play Patrick Non-Gage. The second is the Cassie chick. The third is some Jenna chick. I can't seem to find the main chick that's gonna be in this movie, whos name is Briana Evigan. I guess she don't have a Myspace page, but since this whole entire movie is suppose to be Myspace friendly, you'd think the movie studio would force her to have one.

After the list of friends (even that damn Milkshake chick made the cut), I see something I've never seen before: a forum ON the profile. Usually forums about stupid crap like this is usually seething with dumbasses, but I couldn't find anything stupid or laughable about it. You win this time, Step Up 2.

Ok now we get to the comments. Pretty much every single one is just people saying "Check out my hip and hot dance moves" and "Pick me pleeeeze!!!" BUT! Lo and behold, I found my first non-positive feedback comment!!!!



I was on this chick's side, then I realized it's cause they're probably gonna use that god awful song in the movie and they wanna make sure all of "us" can dance to it. So that's the reason, yo.

Maybe this isn't screened after all? Well, let's find out.

Last time I used two different profiles to post two different comments. I'm gonna use the same one for two different comments. First, let's do the bad.


Image and video hosting by TinyPic

Ah! I fuckin' knew it!!! That comment won't get posted. I'm gonna wait a little while longer and post another one, with a more uplifting comment.

That's about it. Maybe I am being a bit too hard. I mean, I never did see the first Step Up movie. Maybe it's not all that bad. I mean it's a guy...doing ballet. To make a difference. Who knows?

Oh, as for the contest. I figured if they're letting just ANYONE make a dance video submission video....


Vote for me!
-Jason Gage

(PS: Yes, I really did submit that video into the contest.)

Tuesday, August 07, 2007

Updated: Dead Alive Review


I added images to the first review posted to the site. Dead Alive.

This movie kicks ass. For the lord. Still.
Dead Alive

-Jason

Sunday, August 05, 2007

Anniversary Updates!

So August is the 2 year anniversary of the site and to celebrate I did a whole bunch of crap.

1. I made up a special main page that lists all the reviews I posted in August of 2005. All this week, and part of next week, I'm gonna go back to those reviews and add images and fix them all up nice.
New Main Page

2. I revamped the B Movies page, where I link to all the reviews on the site. Coming soon: Chronological order!
New B Movie Page

3. I made a new page called "Spin Offs", which is gonna be the new home of the Date My Mom reviews, and the two reviews my friend Mary did. I get the feeling I'm gonna have to replace her soon. Anyone interested in writing cool ass articles/essays about movies for the site? Write back to me!
Spin-Offs

4. I am slowly (and I do mean slowly) going through each and every single review and reformatting it to fit a screen resolution of 1024 by 768. Plus I'm fixing any long overdue typos or grammar errors and adding images if needed. This one might take awhile longer. But it'll be worth the wait.

5. I did update the normal main page a bit. I'm not sure if I wanna keep it that way, but it'll stay that way for now. Out of all the problems I have with the site, finding a way to orgainize the main page has always been a hassle. I did put in a "bulletin board" where I list little updates and changes to the site. You can check that out here:
New Main Page Layout...for now

That's about it. Thank you guys so much for reading and supporting the site!
-Jason

List: Movies People Can't Believe I Haven't Seen

It seems that people wish to challenge my "Movie Buff Guy" title by asking me if I seen such and such movie. 9 times out of 10 I can say, with confidence, "Yes!" But then I get someone, usually my fiancee or a co-worker, who asks me "Have you seen blahblahblah?" and I go "uh....no?" The following list is of movies that people just don't believe that I haven't seen yet.

1. The Bourne Movies
You'd think that I would've seen these movies because FINALLY there's a major badass character named Jason. You don't know how many movie's I've seen where a character named Jason would appear and he'd either be an asshole, the villain, or the stupidest guy in the whole entire movie. It didn't help any that in the beginning of "The Day After Tomorrow" Dennis Quaid's character is working with a dude named Jason in Antarctica and he trips on a piece of machinery and next thing you know, Antarctica is being split into 2 thousand pieces. Anyway..

Why I Haven't Seen These Movies: Well, when The Bourne Identity came out I was like, "Hm ok, cool. I'll get around to it eventually." Then before I knew it, there was The Bourne Supremacy. And I was like "Uh...there's a series?" And now we have The Bourne Ultimatum. So honestly, I just didn't have time to catch up before the third one even came out.

Will I See These Movies: Considering my fiancee is a hardcore Jason Bourne fan, and she wants to see Ultimatum, I probably will.


2. The Lord of the Rings Series

When the first movie rolled out in 2001, I was vaguely aware of the book series and knew it had something to do with The Hobbit, which I was more familiar with. Little did I know the HUGE impact this movie would have on the world and how many Tolkin geeks there are out there. And I knew the director Peter Jackson was familiar cause he directed some goofy-ass movies back in the day that I wanted to see (I have now since then watched a few of them he needs to go back to making those kinds of movies).

Why I Haven't Seen These Movies: I have two good reasons.
1. When Fellowship of the Ring came out, I was currently unemployed, so I didn't have the money to see it. Then Two Towers came out and, well, I haven't seen the first one, so why see this one? Same with Return of the King.
2. They are SOOOOO fucking long!!! I mean it's what, 3 hours for each movie? Plus the 90 million endings that occur during "King". I just didn't have the time.

Will I See These Movies: Sure. When I have 72 hours to kill.


3. The Pirates of the Caribbean Movies

I was caught off guard with this one. I heard of the ride and thought to myself "How in the hell do you make a whole entire movie....based on a ride? Three movies to boot?" But goes to show what I know, cause each movie made roughly 900 billion dollars.

Why I Haven't Seen These Movies:
I wasn't interested at first. I mean it looked cool and kinda flash and I was familiar with the director, but I'm not a big pirate movie fan. So I purposely didn't see the first one. But when the next two came out, I felt like the entire world was in on this cool thing and I was just an outsider who didn't "get it".

Will I See These Movies: I'll check out the first one. If I like that one enough, I'll check out the others. If not (insert walk the plank joke here).

4. The Mel Gibson Epic Series
And no I don't mean Lethal Weapon 1 through 4. I'm talking about "Braveheart" "The Passion of the Christ" and "Apocalypto". I'm not sure if The Patriot counts in this series, but I have seen that.

Why I Haven't Seen These Movies: I didn't think I would be into "Braveheart" cause I swear the previews for it made it look like a love story with a little bit of battle in it. But my friend Bill is all like "Dude! This movie is fuckin' awesome!!! You gotta see it!!" and it's in his top 5 favorite movies ever or something.
I'm unsure if I even wanna see Passion of the Christ, since I hear it's just people whipping Jesus for 2 hours straight.
And Apocalypto. Um...I have no fuckin' clue what this movie is even about.

Will I see These Movies: Braveheart-Yes. Passion-Maybe. Apocalypto-If it's on somewhere, I'll watch it. But I won't go out of my way to see it.

5. Anything Directed by Werner Herzog
Apparently there's some guidelines to follow if you wanna be a "movie buff guy" and one of these is to see Werner Herzog movies. And not just ANY Werner Herzog movie. These include "Fitzcarraldo", "Aguirre, The Wrath of God" and "Stroszek", which I actually got to see last year. I'm sure there are a thousand other movies by Herzog that I'm suppose to see, but these seem to be the main ones that pop up on the list of "OH MY GOD JASON YOU NEED TO SEE THIS MOVIE NOW GOD DAMMIT NOW!!"

Why I Haven't Seen These Movies: I didn't even know who the hell Herzog was until I met my friend Mary, who is obsessed with him. And I mean OBSESSED. So when it comes to the Herzog department, I'm a bit backed up.

Will I See These Movies: Within time I'm sure I will. If not, I know a chick in the Boston area that's gonna kill me.

6. Those Japanese/Chinese/Whatever Movies Where People Fly and Fight
I'm including in this "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" "Hero" and "The House of Flying Daggers".

Why I Haven't Seen These Movies: Crouching Tiger-Me and my friend Bill tried to watch this once and, well, we couldn't finish it. Not only were we bored, we had no idea what the hell was going on. And didn't really buy the whole "these people can fly and walk up walls and trees" thing. Hero-Out of EVERY movie on this list, when I tell people I haven't seen this one, I literally get beaten up while being ask "What the fuck is wrong with you? See this movie now!!!" and I say "Ok I will when you stop punching me in the head." And, well....I haven't. I don't have a good reason. I just keep forgetting about it. Ow, ow stop punching!
The House of Flying Daggers-I honestly haven't heard of this one, but someone told me that I need to see this and I asked if it was anything like Crouching Tiger and they said yes. Then I just nodded quietly cause this person is obviously a fan of these movies and I'm still sore from the beating I got over "Hero".

Will I See These Movies: Crouching Tiger-No. House of Flying Daggers-No Hero-YES YES JUST LEAVE ME ALONE!!!!

7. Casablanca
Now we're in the "single movie" category of the list. I used this movie has the basis of an April Fools prank in 2006. I claimed that I watched Casablanca and that I hated it so much that I had to review it. Then I posted a link and people was greeted with the "YOUR INTERNET CONNECTION ISN'T WORKING" or whatever message. And it worked. I got a bunch of emails saying "Uh....your site is down". So yeah.

Why I Haven't Seen This Movie: I really don't know. I guess I never got around to it? I mean hell I've seen "Dumpster Baby" for cryin' out loud, why don't I make time for Casablanca?

Will I See This Movie: Yeah, yeah I will. I swear.

8. The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe
The Chronic-what-cles of Narnia!! I watched the cartoon version of this when I was kid, once, in the 5th grade. I don't remember much except that it was animated. And there was in fact a lion, a witch, and a wardrobe.

Why I Haven't Seen This Movie: Honestly, I was suppose to a few times. But plans were changed and I couldn't find anyone else interested in going.

Will I See This Movie: Yeah I'll get to it when I'm done with Lord of the Rings. So I'll need another 50 hours to spare.

9. Citizen Kane
Everyone seems to know that (SPOILER ALERT!!) Rosebud is a sled. But WHY is THAT piece of information so damn important? Guess I need to see the movie to find out.

Why I Haven't Seen This Movie: Frankly, it looks kinda boring to me. I just know these facts about this movie.
1. There's a character named Charles Foster Kane
2. He dies while uttering the word "Rosebud"
3. A snowglobe breaks
4. We find out what rosebud is.
5. ???
6. Profit
But I guess if I need to be an all-around movie guy, this is possible required viewing.

Will I See This Movie: Yeah, why not.

10. Amelie
After the beating I get from Hero, I get asked "Have you at least seen Amelie?" and I go "Um, no". Then I get another beating asking why not and I scream out "I never heard of it until now" then I get beaten even further. Then I ask what it's about and during that beating I'm told it's about a French chick who does stuff and I say that don't sound very interesting and I get shot multiple times.

Why I Haven't Seen This Movie: I never heard of it until a year or two ago, when the first beating started. Then the chick who plays Amelie (I'm assuming that Amelie is the characters name) appeared in The Da Vinci Code and there was buzz about that. So now there seems to be Amelie fever spreading among my friends and I'm possibly the last person who hasn't seen this.

Will I See This Movie: If the death threats and beatings will stop, yes I will.

Well those the first 10 that I can think of. When I get around to watching any of these I will let you know so the beatings can stop. And please share with me any movie that you haven't seen that people give you a hard time about. And also share any movie you THINK I need to see. Just be nice about it please.
-Jason