Tuesday, February 3, 2015

THE OMEGA MAN (1971)

Los Angeles 1977.  Two years ago, biological warfare between China and Russia created a "plague" that killed most of the earth's population.  Now the only thing that's left is a pack of monk robe wearing nocturnal albino-mutant dorks (The Family) and Charlton Heston.  The albino nerds hate modern technology and education, since they see it as the reason for the humans downfall, so they spend their nights rummaging around a deserted Los Angeles burning books and destroying stuff.  Charlton, on the other hand, seems to be about half insane and spends his time searching for The Family's hideout, talking to himself and rubbing his flabby chest.  That is until one day when Charlton sees another human...or did he?

The idea for THE OMEGA MAN is great and full of endless potential and who knows maybe back in 1971 this was seen as an awesome film, but watching it now it's totally weak.  The sets looked like TV show sets, there are multiple instances of human movement in the background during the daytime scenes, the camerawork was amateur to the point of being distracting, it's never explained if there are still animals or not, the Family hates Charlton and know where he lives but yet they can't seem to be able to destroy the building he lives in (hint: burn down the entire block!), heavy-handed messiah theme, Charlton Heston taking his shirt off to give us a full pectical spectacle( ...which, I guess, is better than him taking his pants off and giving us a testicle spectacle), terrible acting by the Family background actors, Charlton's horrible time-keeping skills, Charlton repeatedly lays his gun down and walks off...that said, I actually ended up liking the film.  It's just sooo cheesy that you can't help but smirk nearly the entire time.

Not really recommended for younger audience since they will probably just sit there confused at the dated stuff and the poor filmmaking, but curious older audiences will probably get a kick out of it.
Reflection of tree never moves the entire time the helicopter is supposedly spinning out of control.

Wednesday, January 28, 2015

EDGE OF TOMORROW (2014)

GROUNDHOG DAY meets Gears of War (with a dash of STARSHIP TROOPERS) and it's pretty fucking badass.  Military officer Tom Cruise wants no part in actual fighting, but one day he finds himself on the front line of a D-Day style beach invasion of humans (in battle suits) versus some awesome looking aliens called Mimics.  Things happen and Cruise is killed, but not before being bathed in weird alien goo.  (Kinky.)  Then...Cruise wakes up the previous day.  He's forced into battle again and dies again...only to wake up in the same time and place as he did before.  What the Hell is going on here?

I really, really enjoyed EDGE OF TOMORROW.  The video game feel to it, the time travel aspect with a strong story, awesome looking alien invaders that have a terrifying fighting style, very impressive editing, beautiful photography, the light humor that's not forced and actually funny, tons and tons of action.  EDGE OF TOMORROW is a blast!  I've always been a fan of Tom Cruise, but he's really been upping his game lately with films like this and OBLIVION

Highly recommended and the less said the better.  Just watch it.