Elysium (2013)

Elysium was not quite as good as District 9. District 9 was wholly original and unique, full of fresh ideas and moral narrative. Elysium while full of similar moral narrative, also had the misfortune of having the Hollywood gloss applied to its story. Cheap manipulations of emotion via climax and score, not to mention unambiguous victims and oppressors. Good vs. Evil is ok (in this case the Good being the poor and the Evil being the wealthy), but I would have liked to have seen further elucidation on the character and motives of the inhabitants of Elysium. A good morality tale overall, but not as nuanced and detailed as District 9 was. It wrapped up too nicely, too happily, too Hollywood.

My other beef was the use of my old nemesis the shaky-cam. I don't recall such blur in District 9. Only the shaky-cam can take intense action and turn it into a frustrating episode of vertigo, and unfortunately it was on high display in Elysium.

Other than those two beefs, it was a good film. Neil Blomkamp has made another quality entry into the science-fiction pantheon.

8/10.

Pacific Rim (2013)

One of the worst movies I've seen in the theater in a while. I almost got up and left, but I paid ten bucks to see it. I wouldn't have missed much if I had. The acting was the only decent thing about the film. The visual effects were muddy, and for some reason every battle scene was blurred by rain. The respect of the laws of physics was non-existent. And the story, ho-boy the story. While there were a couple of original touches, for the most part it was rehashed cliches. Del Toro even went so far as to steal plot points from not only Independence Day, but also the dreadful Emmerich remake of Godzilla from the 1990's. The rousing speeches all sounded familiar. The conflicts between characters had been done before in every other movie in history. It was overall a very dumb, very boring, very noisy rehash of pretty much every other film of it's genre. I'm only giving it as high a rating as I am because the actors were all quite exceptional in working with what they were given. 3/10.

The X-Files: Jose Chung's "From Outer Space"

I finished rewatching season five of the X-Files last weekend which allowed me to rewatch the film for the first time since it was in theaters. In honor of that, I'm posting a five photo album from my favorite episode that I had posted on my old deleted reddit account.

Writer Darin Morgan again proves he's brilliant by stitching together a plethora of neat references and deadpan humor into a seamlessly entertaining story that respectfully pokes fun at the series itself. Here are some of my favorite moments.

"You ever flown a flying saucer? Afterwords, sex seems trite."

Notice the mashed potato homage to Close Encounters Of The Third Kind. 

"I didn't spend all those years playing Dungeons and Dragons

and not learn a little something about courage."

Notice the "I Want To Believe" poster in Blaine's room. 

Conspiracy hound Jesse Ventura as a Man In Black 

Ventura performs a Pendulum Backbreaker on Blaine 

"As for Reynard Muldrake, a ticking timebomb of insanity, 

his quest into the unknown has so warped his psyche one 

shudders to think how he receives any pleasures from life."

Easy. By masturbating while watching the Patterson-Gimlin film.