The Thing (2011) review

I hate remakes.  Really I do.  Yet I keep going to see them.  Not all of them but still I see a lot.  So as much as John Carpenter’s The Thing is a classic.  As much as it is one of the best horror films of the 80’s, and as much as I hated on the remake, where was I this weekend.  Now there are a lot of ways to justify this.  Carpenter’s 1982 classic was in itself a remake.  The 2011 version of The Thing is technically not a remake but a prequel.  The trailers looked good, the director tied it in directly to the original, etc., etc.  Still I felt a little dirty sitting in the theater waiting for it to start.

Now story wise it is indeed a prequel, as it takes place in the Norwegian camp visited briefly in the original.  Still a large part of the film is a shot for every other shot remake.  SO prequel or remake, you make the call.  After all as a wise man said “you can call a horse a monkey all day long, doesn’t mean it will be swinging from a tree the next time you see it.”  I’m going to attempt to refer to it as a prequel but if I slip up and refer to The Thing as a remake, please forgive me.  There will be spoilers so leave now if you want to avoid them.

I have heard both good and bad for The Thing, but most of my friends seem to like it so I was expecting at least a good movie.  On that point The Thing (2011) did not disappoint. 

The Thing opens in Antarctica on the Norwegian base as they discover what turns out to be an alien spaceship.  Fans of the original The Thing know that this is the ship of the first films protagonist.  Then we shift away from Antarctica to meet our story’s hero, Kate Llyod, played my Mary Elizabeth Winstead .  Winstead is one of the highlights of The Thing.  Just as tough and strong willed as McCready from the 81 version, but not as bitter or world weary. Lloyd accompanies a group of scientists back to help remove the alien from the ice.

On the base, as usually happens in good horror/sci-fi, greed overcomes good sense and the creature is freed.  Violence, bloodshed, and body absorption occurs in rapid succession.  Lloyd, like McCready in the 1982 The Thing, quickly realizes that not everyone on the base is who they seem.  Attempts to test for the creature meet with sabotage, and people vanish.  There is a flamethrower standoff, ala The Thing 1982 which culminates in a battle between the humans and the CGI Thing.  Ultimately it ends up being a battle inside the alien spaceship, as Lloyd and Carter, played by Joel Edgerton, attempt to prevent The Thing from blasting off to warmer climes.  This leads to a pre-credits ending that is probably the best part of the film.  Then as the credits roll, we see a scene that directly ties in with the opening of the 1982 version of The Thing.

So on to the good and the bad.  Let’s start with the opening, well not actually the opening but near the opening where we first meet Winstead’s character.  It takes place off Antarctica.  Right away we lose that feeling of claustrophobia that Carpenter cultivated throughout the original The Thing.  In Carpenter’s The Thing, we never leave Antarctica and seldom leave the base.  To the viewer the snow and wind are all that exist.  The base is a claustrophobic sanctum against the elements.  To go outside is to die of exposure, to stay inside is to die at the hands of The Thing.  It’s a small thing but seeing the outside world, let me know it existed in the world of The Thing.  I would have much preferred to have met Lloyd on the base.  Have her fly in, see her torturous acclimation to the cold.

The cinematography of The Thing (2011) was absolutely beautiful.  It would be a highlight of the film except the beauty once again takes away from that feeling of desperation in the first film.  I think the director’s intention was to show “the call before the storm” and he did succeed in that but it detracts from the horror.  Once again, there is beauty out there, there is hope.  Try to find that same feeling of hope in Carpenter’s The Thing.  It’s not there.

The CGI, the big bad wolf of modern horror, The Thing 2011 was pretty heavy with CGI, especially in the last half.  It wasn’t horrible and there was probably no realistic way to show a walking talking Thing with practical effects.  Blame the great practical effects that created the Thing’s corpse in the first film.  Still the creature kind of looked silly and didn’t inspire and horror or terror while watching it.  In the final confrontation inside the Thing’s spaceship, it looked more like a fairy tale troll than a murderous alien.  The transformation scenes themselves were ok, but the camera just stayed on the monster way too long.  It’s ok to show the monster but the longer you linger, the easier it is to see the zipper.

There were some silly little things that bother me in film, there always are.  Scenes like Lars sudden disappearance, only to reappear unhurt at the end.  Made for a great tie in with the first, but WTF?  He just suddenly jumped to the side as if he had been grabbed, then hides through all the mayhem till the end.  Also what is up with the Thing’s spaceship?  It’s huge, as befits a huge ass alien critter, yet all of the hallways appear to be built to the scale of Kate Moss.  Sure the creature can morph but it appears to favor big ass bodies so why not have a ship where he doesn’t have to bend over and squeeze through if he needs to chase someone.  Then there was the scene where it waits for Winstead to step out into the hallway before attacking.  Even though it knows where she is. And when it attacks it breaks through the wall of the ship instead of just grabbing her in the tunnel.  I guess it was tired of forcing itself through those tiny tunnels.  There is another scene that irked me but it is a pretty major spoiler so I won’t go into it.  It sets up a situation that is probably the best scene in the movie, so while I don’t totally buy it, it is worth it for the payoff.

There are a few transformation scenes that seem almost duplicates from the first film.  There is also the flamethrower standoff which is taken almost directly from the 1982 The Thing.  You decide homage, or rip off.  I groaned during the transformation, and at the beginning of the standoff, although the ending sort of redeemed it for me

I’m sure at this point a lot of you are saying “Jesus Christ dude, nitpick it to death” or wondering why I am not demanding my money back.  Well it’s because I liked it.  Yeah I said it, I liked it.  It will never be the classic that Carpenter’s 1982 masterpiece will be but The Thing 2011 is a good movie.    So why did I like it?

First off Mary Elizabeth WInstead, as Kate Lloyd was one of the most impressive and well written female characters in a recent horror film.  Lloyd was smart, tough, and when it came down to it downright brutal.  As beautiful as she was to look at, you never saw her behave as a typical female movie character.  While she showed some sympathy toward the suspected alien inhabited American’s she was resolute in her decision to isolate them.  She would quickly turn that flame thrower on anyone infected.  To me she was every bit as strong a hero as McCready, but not as anti-social.

The final scene that ties in The Thing 2011 with the 1982 The Thing is Brilliant!  So many films don’t even try to connect, or if they do they create ludicrous situations.  This took the ending straight from the first, and added an intro.  It worked to perfection.

The scenery and cinematography were beautiful as I mentioned above, but also took away from that feeling of being cut off, of desperation.

The best scene of the movie, for me, was the pre-credit ending.  I’ll try not to completely spoil it, but it was wonderful.  That last confrontation was so well acted and written that I wasn’t sure which way it was going to play out.  I knew something was up, but I wasn’t sure how it would end.  Then the final scene with Winstead, look at her face. It’s filled with desperation, fear, and possibly uncertainty.  Is she wondering if she just made a huge mistake?  She knows she is more than likely going to freeze to death.  So many emotions were on her face, unlike in the typical horror film hero’s face, unlike the typical jubilant heroes of most film.

Edgerton’s role in the final scene was also well done and acted.  Never once did he break and give us a clue as to his true nature.  Was he human, or was he The Thing?  Did we hear the Thing screaming or was that Carter?  The director makes it just ambiguous to make me a bit uneasy.  It was stated in The Thing 1982, that if someone were a perfect copy, would even they know they weren’t human?  If that’s true do we really know who the Thing was at the end.  If it was anyone at all, was it all paranoia?  We will hopefully never know.

So yeah I liked The Thing 2011, the remake, err, prequel, whatever.  It’s a good movie, not great, but it has some great scenes.  It’s not perfect, but it has some damn near perfect scenes.  The acting is strong throughout.  There are some characters we grow attached to and then see die horribly.  It’s not great, but (heresy!) it’s worth the cost of a ticket, and hell even popcorn, but sneak in your own cola.

Melissa:Two hot for Facebook, part 1



Hey asshole! Stop reporting Facebook photos!






OMG, are you still staring at me?



Melissa :Too hot for Facebook-preview

Those are just a taste

More will come soon

Noel

She might not be the first Noel, but she is the last Noel you will ever need. Check out the best Noel.

Straw Dogs (2011)

Alexander Skarsgard all wet

Bare chested Alexander Skarsgard

It seems as much as I say I hate remakes, I still end up seeing them. True I usually avoid them at theaters but eventually I end up watching them. Even the God awful Day of the Dead remake I have sat through on cable. Even free it totally sucked ass. So with nothing else at the theater and me bored I went to see Straw Dogs.



Straw Dogs is a remake of a film by Sam Peckinpaw starring Dustin Hoffman and Susan George. I wasn’t expecting much, but was hoping to be surprised. While true The original was directed by one of my favorite directors of all time and starred one of the greatest living actors and the smoking hot Susan George. Still I was never a huge fan of Straw Dogs. I have only seen it once, and it just never took root like The Wild Bunch or Billy the Kid. SO I had no real emotional attachment to the original Straw Dogs to make me hate the remake off hand.



Still, it’s a remake and I just generally hate remakes on principle alone. There is never a real need for a remake. There are too many original projects that never get funded, never get made, never get released. Even if a remake turns out good, what original script never sees the light. Remakes are nothing but a cheap grab at profits off someone else’s work. Ok that’s a rant for another story. Back to Straw dogs.



So I went into Straw Dogs with no extra animosity. It was a remake but it wasn’t destroying the memory of a cherished film from my childhood (Hello Candyman remake). I was prepared to give it a shot.



On the positive side it starred red hot Alexander Skarsgard from True Blood. Now I’m not gay but if I were ever tempted it would be by Alexander. The rest of the first billed cast did little for me, and really Alexander was the main reason I ended up at the theater.



One big positive that was missed was Walton Groggins. It was great seeing him on the big screen. What wasn’t great was how little screen time he actually got. Blink once you’re ok, twice maybe, three time, see you missed him. Walton steals the small screen in what ever role he is in. Check him out on The Shield or Justified. Attention Hollywood it’s time he got either a lead role or a big ass role in a major film.



The big negative was that it was a remake. Sorry but with a remake there is always that feeling of “seen it before.” Porting the film from England to the deep south was a nice change and worked fairly well in and off itself, but it was just a really close remake. Even though I had only seen the original Straw Dogs once I pretty much knew what was up all the way through. Sorry but that is a negative when I bust out ten bucks a ticket for a film.



Being from the south I recognized a lot of the characters. While some were a bit stereotyped I never really felt insulted. I didn’t feel wronged because even though they were sometimes stretched, they were real. I grew up with those people.



I did feel the sub plot with the high school ingénue and the over muscled “slow” man came off as fake. Sorry I see what they were shooting at but never bought it. It came off as too much like Of Mice and Men. Once again I haven’t seen the original Straw Dogs in years so this could be almost exactly what happened in the original. Still it didn’t quite work for me.



James Marsden really stood out as the fish out of water Hollywood writer.  I'm not a huge fan of Marsden but I really bought into his character and felt for him. Maybe he was a bit stereotypical liberal, but he did manage to offend my southern sensibilities, not with his actions, but with his attitude at times. His character for the most part felt he was better than the locals. At times he seemed to want to fit in, but mostly he seemed to just want to avoid the locals and their customs. Still he proved to be heroic and at the end WAS better than the locals. More on that later.



Kate Bosworth was just there. No offense to her but I found her character unlikable in the first Straw Dogs. I pretty much felt the same in the remake. Her character instigates many of the conflicts in Straw Dogs. I’m not taking the position that a woman should “cover up” to avoid unwanted male attention, but she did stir the sexual pot. At times she was actually provoking the tension. It’s not her fault it’s the way she was written and without her the story takes on a deeper, darker tone. I have always seen her character as just as much the villain as Skarsgard’s locals.



The magnet that draws and holds you to Straw Dogs is Alexander Skarsgard though. He exudes southern charm while channeling Eric Northman every time he scowls at the camera. Till near the end he almost comes off as a sympathetic character. In love with the woman he can never have. The woman who detests the life he leaves, and the life she left behind.



One big fault to me was how the lovable, mild Charlie at the beginning could become the violent killer at the end. Maybe there was always some psychosis behind his smile but I didn’t see it. The rape scene mid way through seemed more in character. We know he loves Amy. He is also deluded that Amy still has feelings for him. A delusion that Amy does nothing to disperse, and at times seems to encourage.



The final assault on the Sumner homestead, lead by a maniacal James Woods is violent and bloody. Pacifist David defends his wife, home and the slow Jeremy from the angry mob while Amy cowers in the room, urging him to capitulate every chance she gets. It does get bloody folks. One of the more violent segments in a non horror film. That last battle might not make Peckinpaw proud, but it wouldn’t embarrass him either. Much of the final fight is taken directly from the original Straw Dogs.



So what’s the verdict. Overall it’s not a bad film. Decent acting, decent story, lots of violence. I never had to stretch my disbelief to thin although I did feel it wanting to slip at times. It will never go down as a classic. More likely it will end up in the bargain bin at Wal-Mart, but hey they are some decent flicks in there (Ernest Scared Straight FTW!). Still it’s worth a watch even at theater prices, especially if you have never seen the original.



True blue Peckinpaw fans might pan it but there have been much worse remakes made. Day of the Dead. There’s enough action and violence to keep you entertained and the ending is explosive. SO for a remake I will give Straw Dogs a passing score. Not an A+ but a solid B. So if you are bored, or if you are an Alexander Skarsgard (or Eric Northman) fan check it out. Then go and rent or buy everything with Walton Goggins in it and see a real under appreciated actor.

Peace

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Five Songs That Drop the F-Bomb in Their Title

The almighty F-Bomb, the big bad wolf of curse words. Using it makes little old ladies gasp and kids giggle. It can get a movie an R rating as quickly as the full Monty. It’s use is pretty much forbidden on radio and television. Tipper Gore will slap a label on your CD if you use it.





So with all this you won’t find the F-Bomb in many songs right? Well outside of hard core rap it is kind of rare but it does exist. Some songs are so brazen that they actually put it in the title. Oh my!!



So without further ado, here is a list to make your granny blush and your girlfriend giggle. Songs that drop the F-bomb in their title



1. This Fucking Job- Drive by Truckers.



It’s rough out there now and this song and video say what a lot of us are feeling. Make sure you watch both versions for a different ending and you can decide which is the most bleak.

2. Fuck Her Gently.



Jack Black and Kyle Gas as Tenacious D provide this comedic look at love and the art of F**king gently.

3. Fuck Dying- A collaboration between hard rockers KORN and rapper Ice Cube results in one of the most bad ass songs of all times.

4. Fucking Perfect- Pink’s anthem to self worth is a beautiful song, with a great message. Beyond the profanity it is a statement of being yourself and ignoring the pressure to be “perfect”

Fuck You- Cee Lo Green



Probably the most popular song with the F-bomb in the title, the radio edit substitutes the word forget, for the more offensive F word. Funny thing is the song actually sounds and flows better in the edited version. That’s my opinion any way and well if you don’t agree, see the unedited version for instructions.

　



And special mention goes to comedian Jon Lajoie for his newest song Fuck Everything.

That about says it all now Fuck off



　



　

The latest Angela pictures

Because certian people had problems with the "pornogrpahic" pictures I posted of a girl in a swimsuit (In a beach community) I have taken them down.  Not because there is anythign wrong with them, but because I can.  Because the pictures are copywrited to me.  I won't call any names but I know who you are.  The problem with people who talk behind other people's back is that they sometimes talk to people who talk to me.   So talk all you wont but you wont see the pictures here.  You also shouldn't bother trying to talk to me if you are going to talk about my friends.  Do any of you have the balls to stand up and say you found the pictures offensive?  Not likely.  Whatever I honestly don't give a shit.  The only reason that you knew the pictures were up is because a young lady was very proud of the works she had done.  Is that why you were so bitter just because you don't like her, or vecause you have never done anything to be proud of?  The people who liked the pictures feel free to leave support.