CAPTAIN AMERICA

Went to see Captain America this week. Was looking forward to this one. Figured it would be a simple, straight forward action movie. Shouldn't have been anything that they could totally screw up. Keep it simple, basic and just get things done.

And I can report that they pretty much accomplished that goal. The movie was a nice period piece, World War II story. Essentially a war movie. With just enough twist to make sure you never forgot that there was super heroes and villains involved. And you wouldn't miss that with the Nazi Pseudo Science, Steampunk type stuff running around.

I was perfectly happy with the cast, especially Red Skull. Who looked great as well. Caps costume translated well on screen, and I liked the supporting cast mostly as well.

If I had anything I would complain about, I guess it would have to be the ending. As a friend pointed out.. Why didn't they shoot up the flying wing so Cap would have to crash it. It just seemed a little too contrived for the reason to dump it. By the time we get to that point, it's hard to believe someone couldn't have come up with a plan to get him down. Except that we know he has to be frozen in the ice so that he can wake up in the future to lead the Avengers.

But, other than that It was a great comic book action movie. And I would only add I wish I could have seen it on 2D instead. This 3D crap is just that.

3.5 stars out of 5

Haven Season One

Finished up with Season One. Wasn't sure what to expect, and in the first few episodes I wasn't sold. But as the show carried on, and we got introduced to more of the cast and the events it managed to sell me.

How many of these supernatural, weirdness shows can we get invested into anyway?? They all seem to be variations of one another.. The X - Files, Supernatural, Fringe, Haven.. Same base idea with some twists to make it their own.

This show is supposed to be based on some of Kings work. But from what I was able to read from Wikipedia I don't see much but a thin thread of a connection really. But what makes this show different for me than the others of it's kind I guess would be the fact that it's grounded on one location.

Everything is happening in Haven. Whether it be the place or the residents. And the down home rural 'Murder She Wrote' feel of the show, or the casting. The show is apparently done near Halifax, Nova Scotia really seems to bring this out. Being about a place or fixed location makes it different. And seems to be setting a tone of mystery to the show. Let alone a 'creature' of the week routine that seems to be a staple of the genre. And something I was concerned about when I first started to watch the show. And they have done. But theirs is just weirder events, no vampires or werewolves here. And hopefully won't be coming up.

And with the finale, and premiere of season two really throwing the things on it's head about the lead character. I'm looking forward to the next episode to see if anything she thought she knew was true or not..

So getting back to all these shows that seem to be cousins with one another, it's doesn't seem so much about whether they all have similar ideas. But how they decide to execute these ideas. So I guess this may mean a vote of confidence for Hollywood not having any original ideas and just rehashing everything. As long as they rehash it well.. And that means good writers.

3 stars out of 5

Miscellaneous Items

Been watching a lot of series lately, and they are all taking turns. So I haven't finished up much. So, this is what I have been watching

Life on Mars (U.S. Version) Turning out to be a pretty good how. Kind of wish I had of watched it when it was on. Too bad that it got cancelled, but at least it sounds like they were able to have an ending.

Community - Sitcom, I did finish season one, and am now catching up on Season two. And the show just seems to get better. And I don't usually care for too many comedies on television. Or movies for that matter. Although the themed episodes seem to be better. And the Halloween episodes seem to rival The Simpsons to me for entertainment value.

Breaking Bad - Coming back this Sunday for season four. And I can't wait. Been an awesome show so far.

Torchwood Miracle Day - New series finally, only seen the first episode so far. But if it's on the level with the last series should be pretty good.

Haven - Based on Kings work, which I am normally not much of a fan of. Only seen the first episode so far. But, not real impressed yet. Seems like just another X - Files weird happening show.

Leverage - New season is airing. Been a fan of this show since season one.

Damages - New season of this legal drama type show is airing.. Been a great show, don't expect the current season to be a let down.

True Blood - The new season is looking better than last, but they have strayed so far from the books it's anyone's guess. Having read all the books but the last one I don't see why they had to. There was lots of material to keep them busy with only 13 episode seasons for awhile I would have thought.

Falling Skies - Jericho meets V.. Good show so far..

Game of Thrones - Best thing I have seen bar none pretty much, in a long time. Season two can't come soon enough.

Money in the Bank coming up tomorrow night, hard to see how this won't be interesting. But could also lead to some big disappointments in the end. Let's hope they swerve everyone and put on a fantastic finish with Punk.

Harry Potter opens this weekend, looks good. But we all know how misleading trailers can be. And Captain America and Cowboys and Aliens are coming up..

Thinking about opening WoW account again.. Tried the 7 Day Firelands trial and it was so - so .. Can't quite remember the groove to playing half my classes but one. Not sure I want to continue the grind to 85 on all of them. But with no place to rent PS3 titles here anymore, not much else to play with. Maybe Diablo 3 before next spring. Battlefield 3 looked nice, loved that series in the past. But the leaked recommended specs are just way too high for me.

Do have a few console titles to finish up, but just haven't felt like it. Dragon Age 2 was quite fun, but I took a few days off from it. And just never got back into it. Same thing for WWE All Stars and Red Dead Redemption.

And I haven't turned the XBox on in months. And with no place to rent Gears of War 3 this fall I probably won't. If I buy any console game between now and the end of the year it will have to be Mass Effect 3. What a phenomenal series.

And I did pick up an extra Battle Blades Bumblebee so I could have one for alt mode. Sincel Bee has rubbed off on me more since TF3. But now I think I will have to get the DoTM Leader Bee since he has apparently official Stealth Force Alt mode that looks awesome.

WWE Raw 07 11 2011

This weeks edition of Monday Night Raw seems to have done the job to keep me interested in this weekends Money in the Bank PPV.

I can say that I am only really interested in how the CM Punk storyline plays out.

The whole Big Show and Mark Henry thing just seems really cheesy, the stunt this week looked bad. The mats and everything were right there. Would have been a lot better had the mats not been visible. I'm sure it looked a lot better live, where you probably didn't have the same view.

Was good to see Vince on TV, don't see much of him these days.

And I hope they bring back the WW(F) Ice Cream bars, that'd be cool. I can remember them when I was a kid, but never actually had one.

I'm going to throw my vote behind some of the speculation online. And hopefully it's true. CM Punk will beat Cena for the title, only to have Del Rio cash in and take it from Punk. And then Punk leaves (Whether to another company or some time off wouldn't really matter)

Even better for me, although I know there is no way it would happen. Would be for Punk to win and leave with the belt. Setup some elaborate work, and make it seem like he'd gone somewhere with the title. Until they bring him back in. But I can't really see any way this will happen.

In the end let's hope CM Punk does stay, because they need him. The end, with him and Cena in the ring was painful. Punk was great on the mic and then Cena starts talking.. But I don't really see any strong faces to back him up.

Other than that most of RAW was forgettable..

Transformers 3 Dark of the Moon

So this will just be a large list of things that struck me about the movie, stream of consciousness style.

I did get to see the movie twice, once in 3D and once in 2D. I liked it better in 2D since the 3D wasn't all that much to write home about. And at a running time of almost three hours, the glasses were getting uncomfortable

Overall the movie was fun, nothing too deep. Was easily the best of the three if your want your action. The first was probably more story. This one seemed to have too much of the humans. The new transformers were just a who cares thing, not like they spent any time letting us get to know them in hardly any way. Que / Wheeljack was just creepy with that head. He looked more like a skull / zombie head than anything else.

I'm sure everyone has heard or read about most of these elsewhere but..

Megatron seemed to be just tacked on, didn't seem to have much to do

Same for Starscream

Star Trek reference at the beginning hinting at Sentinel going bad

Took a human to point out to Soundwave about keeping prisoners

Laserbeak and Starscream drooling over everything

Rosie wasn't as bad as everyone made her out to be

Wreckers didn't do much really, never see them transform that I caught

Skids and Mudflap are in one scene in alt mode if you look close

DVD / Blu Ray already scheduled for the fall

Ironhide supposed to be the heavy hitter of the team, puts up no fight really

Got to see more of Sideswipe after three movies

Got to see little of Dio / Mirage for a new character

Brains was interesting, more so than Que

Deep Wang was funny

The pseudo history thing that they introduced was interesting way to twist things

I thought only Sentinal Prime could use the pillers.. Human turns them back on at the end

Megatron is such a moron that a human goads him in a few words to turn on Sentinel just as he was going to kill prime

Prime becomes blood thirsty and kills his brother and then executes Sentinel.. Seemed like an odd turn of character

Human couldn't penetrate Decepticon air defense. And then an hour later they do it with cruise missiles no problem

Shockwave was a total Dud.. Only saw his cannon fire once.. ?!?

Prime lost his trailer and really needed it back, and suddenly he's flying around..

Prime get's hung up on wires and forgets he has blades built into his arms

There are still a ton of 'cons loose around the globe

Prime only used his cool new super shotgun once..

How did the 'Bots get back from the ocean so fast when none of them fly really

Sams parents are always entertaining

Worm monster was so so, gets wiped out once Prime decides to swat it

Wing Suit scenes.. Why didn't they just come in underwater with the SEALs, seems like they snuck under the radar totally that way

All I can think of for now, but the bots on both sides really need a lot more time making them into real characters. After three movies Rathet hardly has any personality. And when Ironhide goes down, not a mention of him.. Even Jazz got a line of remorse after Megatron destroyed him. This is a transformers movie, they should be more developed than the humans are. It's supposed to be about them. Some of these same people work on Prime, so there must be something else going on with it. TF Prime is much better than all three movies..

Not too mention by the end of the movie, it would seem that the humans don't have much trouble taking down 'Cons. And I had to wonder how they were ever a threat.

And the Autobots are just brutal. The wreckers dismember the enemy, the 'bots don't take prisoners and Prime kills everybody. Who would have though..

3 out of 5 stars

RAW CM Punk Promo 062711

What an awesome promo tonight from CM Punk.. Enough to get you excited about what we should be seeing on the show. Some real spark, and attitude.. But wait that was the attitude era and we don't have that anymore sadly.. These days the WWE isn't even employing Wrestlers or is even a Wrestling company anymore..

Anyway, it should be an interesting few weeks until Money in the Bank.. To see whether he actually leaves with the title or not.. Because the one problem I see with all this is that, he won't be going anywhere with any belt if they (Vince) doesn't allow it. So, all this talk about a shoot promo and such doesn't mean much when he keeps saying he's taking the title with him. Because we all know that won't happen. Medusa got away with it once years ago, and a war almost broke out over the Montreal Screw job to prevent a possibility of it a second time.

But if he's genuinely unhappy hopefully he finds a home somewhere that will be better suited for him. And maybe he'll be back, or we'll get to see his work where ever he lands.

PRIMEVAL

A science fiction BBC series about a group of scientists who setup a top secret organization with the government to investigate rips in space / time that lead to the past and allow dinosaurs and creatures into the present.

Over the course of the series currently 5 series they discover that they actually lead not only to the past but the future as well. And that they are causing ripples and a possibly catastrophic outcomes in the far future.

The show evolves throughout the course of the series, with some characters who die, and others who are changed because of the events that transpire. New people come, they get more help. And the CGI for creature effects get better and better.

The first time I caught the show, I watched a few episodes and found it interesting. But, didn't watch much else until recently. The show does take some time to get going. And I find I like the less 'polished' for lack of a better word of the BBC productions. I'm not sure I would want to see a spit and polished Hollywood production of this show.

The show does remind me of Stargate, but the show comes to them though the rifts, rather than the other way around. And they time travel.. Which adds a new dimension of trouble, as they try not to cause ripples that could affect the present or the future. It does suffer from time to time of creature of the week (Which seemed to be coined when Buffy first came out) but they don't tend to trot out all the famous dinos every week.

Great show

3.5 stars out of 5

Green Lantern 2011

For a movie with literally a galactic scope, it wasn't half bad. But, the movie seemed to be rushed to me. They spent time trying to do too much, and no single thing seemed to be fleshed out enough.

The film spent it's time trying to introduce the vastness of the Lantern Corps. expand upon Hals personal life, and character as well as try to explain to us the depth of destruction and horror that was Parallax.

So, in the end no one thing was really given much to work with. And this doesn't even touch upon the scientist that becomes infected with the yellow matter on earth. So, just seem to be a distraction, and afterthought to what else was going on.

The movie certainly didn't lack one bit in the special effects department. And the movie shifts around from earth to space and across planets no problem at all. It was only in the end, where it broke suspension of disbelief for me.

Hal takes the fight to Parallax, and they progress to Earth orbit. And suddenly they are at the asteroid belt, where was the quickly passing shot of Mars on the way by?? And suddenly they zoom out to the Sun without passing Mars, Earth, Venus or Mercury.. now to be picky the planets could have been nowhere to be seen depending on their orbits.. But it just seemed odd to be whipping around so quickly, with no references..

To get back to Parallax, we never really get the feel for how massive and horrifying he should be. We seem to be told all about it, and we get some fleeting shots of how he is capable of consuming worlds.. But nothing concrete enough. As far as I am concerned.

We get the forging of the yellow ring, and the setup for Sinestro in a sequel assuming there will be one.

The cast wasn't bad at all. I was rather pleased with Hal, Sinestro and the look of everyone over all. The CG constumes were somewhat odd to look at. And the Corps. seemed to use a lot of technology for my taste. Space ships and stuff.

But then my major exposure to them is through the JLA Animated series having never read the comics.

I would say it wasn't really a bad comic movie, but was a bit of a mess. And needed a tighter script. Seemed to be wandering and trying to get into too much. We needed to see more of Parallax. But considering how much it must have cost per minute on screen, I'm not surprised we didn't. And therefore, I didn't find it so credible as a threat. Just this big bad we were supposed to be really worried about, that in the end gets knocked out in 2 minutes.

2.5 stars out of 5

Netflix Canada

I've been holding off on writing anything about this since it launched back in September. Figured I should give it lots of time to get launched, and flesh itself out before passing any kind of 'Judgement' over it.

At this point I have been a member since September of last year. And some of the items I have watched aren't even available on the service any longer.

But for the last two weeks I have been mainly watching DVDs and running Netflix and decided to keep more of my money in my pocket, instead of paying the Satellite companies for crappy choices and poor programming. But most of this is a topic of it's own.

So, in regards to Netflix, I have had discussions with friends south of the border about it. And apparently they aren't too fond of Netflix down there. If that is the case, they certainly wouldn't like what passes for Netflix Canada.

But if your looking for a service to replace Blockbuster or your local neighborhood video store than you will have to keep looking. Because this isn't it.

I can agree with the statements that some of the Cable company execs. have apparently been quoted as saying they didn't fear Netflix, it would be an additional service that people would run alongside their current cable subscriptions.

Programming is updated semi-regularly. For instance, this week something like 50 items were added. And of those I found about 10 that I flagged to watch.

The catalog mostly consists of older titles, Indy, Documentaries, Television Shows, BBC, some recent titles and a lot of kids and Anime. Which suits me just fine at this point.

I have been able to now for almost a year watch things I would never have discovered or seen otherwise. And some Television programming I didn't get, but was available such as Damages, Justified and Leverage. And some great BBC titles like Outlaw, The State Within and Survivors.

Once I cut back in the TV programming I find that I never really watched it anyway. During the regular season what I mainly watched is on the networks anyway. So, I was paying double to have channels that I didn't usually watch. They were just noise in the background.

So in the fall I will still have my NCIS, Supernatural, NCIS Los Angeles, Bones, House and whatnot.. And as long as 'flix keeps updating I'm sure there will be something on that's interesting.

After all I just watched the doc on Harlan Ellison recently, and it was fantastic. Not too mention an Indy flick YPF which in ways was funnier than Hangover 2 and a hell of a lot more controversial.

So I know there are a lot of whiners and complainers since 'Flix launched up here. And the problem would seem to be that they are expecting the wrong thing from the service. Right now at least, and what my American friends have said it will never replace the local video store anyway.

Reminds of when reviewers go to see a Michael Bay movie expecting Shakespeare and complain when they don't get it. Right over their heads.

Netflix is what it is, and it's doing an ok job of being a supplemental service for video entertainment. You never know what interesting little movies, docs, anime or shows you'll find. But the latest and greatest won't be it.

I will say if your watching a series work through it. Because titles seem to vanish with no notice at all.

The Ruins

Is a horror novel written by Scott Smith. I would call it more of thriller or survival horror novel myself, now that I've managed to finish it.

A typical setup, kids on vacation in a foreign land end up going into the jungle, and become trapped and slowly killed / picked off by some terrible presence in the jungle. They can't leave, and can't contact help. Their only hope is to try and conserve their resources until help can come to them. Hopefully before it's too late.

The bulk of the novel deals with the stress and condition of the people stuck together, as the try and cope with the hardships of their predicament and running out of supplies. Not too mention the thing that creeps around the edges.

I didn't have much trouble figuring out what the evil thing was, and I would give credit for being different about it. Rather than going with something more 'normal' so to speak.

I would think this would make a fantastic movie, and it would follow the usual tropes quite well. If they wouldn't muck with it too much. But, it would probably be better suited as a mini series for cable. Maybe one of the things they did twenty years ago.. Make it five parts, Monday to Friday and run an hour a day.

But I can't think of anything right now since V first aired in the early 1980s for that.

Anyway, it was a good book. And the fact that I picked it up blind on a used book shelf for like $3 was even better.

4 out of 5 stars