I was able to sit down for a couple of years and pump out a book. It’s got little to do with movies. Download and read “Thank You, Goodnight†right HERE for free.
And now, you can follow me on TWITTER under the name: Stipp
Item #1 – HOW THE EARTH WAS MADE
I really was a bad student in high school. Not horrible in the classical sense but I was absolutely a C student and I couldn’t grasp mathematical or scientific in ways that made me wonder if I was functionally retarded.
Smash cut to college and one of the very first classes I took my first semester was Geology 101. Kid you not, it was really brutal. Theories on geological formations, how earth’s natural functioning is a result from eons of slow and steady processes, why Illinois is so damn flat (glaciers!) and a multitude of other nuggets that I still feel good for remembering today.
HOW THE EARTH WAS MADE is a lot like that geology class we all had in one form or another in that you are taken on a blazingly up-close exploration into the things that will help anyone appreciate the literal globe of dirt we’re all spinning on with the added bonus of being genuinely friendly to those of us who aren’t versed in nerd. If you’re looking to add a sharp looking title to your Blu-ray collection that’s also educational you have to go with this.
For more on what you get in this check out the product description:
From a seething ocean of radioactive, molten rock to a refuge for life as we know it, Earth has undergone a staggering series of cataclysmic transformations in its long and epic history. Assailed relentlessly for millions of years by meteorites, our once toxic and hostile planet has been covered in water and in ice, and seen the rise and sundering of continents, the creation of an atmosphere, and, ultimately, the beginning of life.
HOW THE EARTH WAS MADE plots the twisting course of Earth s amazing journey. Using groundbreaking special effects and traveling to remote locations where our planet still bears the scars of its violent history, this compelling documentary tells a story of unimaginable timescales, world-shattering forces, radical climates, and mass extinctions.
HISTORY journeys back in time to show the creation of Earth s land masses, the birth of the first complex creatures, and devastating extinctions–before speculating on the future when all life becomes extinct.
BONUS FEATURES: Bonus Documentary Inside the Volcano; Additional Scenes
Item #2 – HEROES SEASON 3 GIVEWAY
People will try and take pot shots at this series which has certainly had issues with trying to find its footing and voice but it still is trying to be something that geeks and nerds can call primetime goodness. This season finds itself marred in various storylines that seem to drag the series down a bit but it is still ballasted by its intriguing premise and the hope that they’ll actually listen to the fans who made this series last this long and get the train back on its proverbial course. There’s stuff to love and there’s stuff to, well, not love about this series but Season 3 still deserves a look see and what better offer out there today to do such a thing than with my contest to win Season 3 on DVD.
Shoot me your name to Christopher_Stipp@yahoo.com and I’ll make sure you’re entered to win one of many I have sitting on my desk just waiting to be devoured who is curious enough to check it out.
El Producto Descriptiono:
Experience all the explosive action and shocking twists as Heroes: Season 3 comes to DVD! Rediscover the phenomenon in this six-disc set that includes all 25 suspenseful episodes from the third season’s volumes, Villains and Fugitives. Plus, go behind the scenes with the show’s writers, stars and artists as you explore hours of exclusive and revealing bonus features.
EXTRACT – REVIEW
In OFFICE SPACE writer/director Mike Judge deconstructed the white collar workplace that has now become a classic in a way that some films never achieve on their own; the film has embedded itself underneath the collective experiences of those having to endure the pains of modern working life. IDIOCRACY explored the way in which our culture seems to be on a slow steady shuffle off the mortal coil of intelligent living. Who could disagree that the one of the more colorful choices of a future president of the United States was found in Terry Crews’ President Camacho? It was an honest examination of our descent into the banal, the bast and just plain stupid.
EXTRACT, unfortunately, explores nothing new and certainly is a disappointment from a man who could very well become a professor of this American life.
The basics of what happens with all our main characters should have produced more comedic gold than the lead we’re given. A sexually frustrated husband, played by Jason Bateman as Joel, has to deal with his distant, frigid wife (Kristen Wiig) while dealing with a clueless bartender friend Dean (Ben Affleck) and a potentially damaging lawsuit from an employee who loses a testicle (Clifton Collins Jr.), threating to derail a plan to sell the extract plant that Joel owns. On the surface, it’s all there. The ways in which marriages can sometimes slip into ruts and routines, how some friends never seem to get over their own arrested development in adulthood and what it means to be loyal as an employee in an age when loyalty and hard work doesn’t seem to have any currency. Instead, we get a strange love story between Bateman and a woman (Mila Kunis) who plays a tempting grifter that smells opportunity where Joel only smells the sweet nectar of infidelity.
The issue that occurs early on in this movie is that none of these opportunities are ever taken advantage of and, instead, we’re given a fairly rote story of a man who thinks he wants to cheat but has cold feet at the moment he realizes it’s too late to go back to the way things were. He ultimately follows temptation and fulfills his lusty fantasy but there is no redemption for a man who obviously has it all wrong to begin with. This isn’t a Mike Judge expose on the nature of human relationships, rather, it’s a poorly constructed and pedantic tale that is not interesting and seems forced at every opportunity to elevate its story to something other than C+ storytelling.
The bright spots, script notwithstanding, are Jason Bateman and Ben Affleck who both give life to characters that are absolutely lifeless on the screen. There are gags (Joel takes bad drugs without knowing what he was taking! Watch the wackiness ensue as he does things he wouldn’t otherwise do without being under the influence!) and coincidental situations (Joel ends up in an apartment taking more drugs and ends up meeting someone who will prove pivotal to the plot! How convenient!) that are not only far fetched but obviously were tossed into a movie that doesn’t feel sincere, devoid of any subtext worth ruminating on.
Clifton Collins Jr. turns in one of the more intriguing performances as a man who deals with issues concerning loyalty and the lure of cashing in on life’s lottery ticket. It’s the issue of loyalty that you could find yourself most attracted to, as it’s ripe for examination at a time when the modern corporation would just as soon replace a worker than to cultivate, take care, of one of its own. He isn’t used much in this film and it suffers more because of it. We don’t examine anything, really, of much importance. The film seems more focused on the absurd and the shocking than it is with becoming a touchstone for any great message. And while Judge certainly has every right to make the film he wants to make, even in this incarnation the movie just isn’t amusing.
The movie ends with the kind of resolution that would be more appropriate on a Must See TV sitcom, the dramatic elements falling flat and flying far off the mark, and we’re left to wonder what it was that we are supposed to get out a movie that wants to blend the contents of a dissolved marriage, subplots that end with a whimper and a completely useless cameo by Gene Simmons that is more sideshow and grinds what little momentum there is to a halt.
EXTRACT is not what you would expect from Mike Judge as it’s a movie that’s terribly flawed and unfortunately doesn’t have anything new to say about the human condition other than what we already know.
MY ONE AND ONLY – REVIEW
I am in love with this movie.
There was a time when you would be hard pressed to think of Renee Zellweger as anything but a high priced movie star who makes choices based on how high the profile of a picture than of its value. In MY ONE AND ONLY she actually smashes preconceptions about her range as an actress and delivers a performance that feels like an intimate period piece, think Neil Simon’s BRIGHTON BEACH MEMOIRS, and is truly one of her most accomplished roles to date.
Renee plays Ann, a mother who has honestly had enough of her cheating husband (played deftly and delightfully by Kevin Bacon) and loads up a car with her stepson Robbie (Mark Rendall) and a young George Hamilton (Logan Lerman). Yes, that George Hamilton. The movie asks a thoughtful “What if” as we’re treated to a quintessential road trip movie that not only is a fresh take on a stale concept but the very idea of piecing together a movie that gets Renee to act in a film that is not too saccharine sweet and manages to eek out one of the stronger performances I have ever seen her is delightful.
We see what happens when a woman can’t stand to conform any longer to society’s expectations of women, but needs her son to drive her in a latent vestige of her old-fashioned femininity, and sheds that shell as she takes her kids to the west coast in the quest to find a better life for all them. Through a series of madcap hookups with such notable actors as Chris Noth, Eric McCormack, Nick Stahl and David Koechner (who plays a lot better here than he did in EXTRACT) Renee plays the part of kept woman who has to deal with the realities of leaving a successful, but cheating, husband behind to find something more out of life. Yes, the premise sounds wickedly cliched. Yes, by all accounts this should be a direct to DVD movie that should share shelf space with the next Antonio Sabato Jr. release but there is something electric and wholly satisfying about this film.
What’s most pronounced in this film is the way director Richard Loncraine has taken the 1950’s and instead of showing the darker, harsher realities of 1950’s living, a la FAR FROM HEAVEN, this is a movie that embraces the perception of this decade and shakes it up to great comedic effect. As well, the script, written by Charlie Peters (HOT TO TROT), crafts a world where zaniness can co-exist with a minor tale of one woman’s slow discovery of liberation. Cinematographer Marco Pontecorvo dusts everything we see with the kind of perceived, augmented reality that only enhances the movie’s comedy.
Renee Zellweger should be in more films like this that allow her to show off just what she’s capable of doing as a genuine actress. While it would be hard for anyone to deny the siren song of big budget production it is her firm grasp on helming every scene she’s in with, at times, quiet ferocity. At times you want to dropkick her, at times you feel for her but the point is that you feel something for her. There are a few films, as of late, that she’s been in where she couldn’t earn any kind of sympathy but she does it here. Logan Lerman, who plays the young George Hamilton, shines as well as a boy trying to find his own way and, of course, crossing paths with his mother as the two of them fight for their independence. It shouldn’t go without noting that the music deserves a nod for being the unseen actor in the back helping to bring the spot-on locations and moments pop with the right amount of energy and wistful nostalgia. The movie has a lot of charm and it spends it slowly, evenly, throughout the picture.
By the time the end of the movie comes it is almost a disappointment in that you’re unsure whether this film can be seen a second or third time but you know that the first time through was a ride that was absolutely worth the effort to take.
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