Saturday, July 28, 2001

I saw Planet of the Apes yesterday and just wanted to say that like Artificial Intelligence, the movie was good up until the ending...which sucked. Is it just me or this is really the first summer where I've seen movies that really sucked big time (Tomb Raider) or ended on a sucky note (see films above)? Oh well. It's next summer that I should be worried about--since next May is when I might see myself running in fear from the Green Goblin in the new Spider-Man movie...and Samuel L. Jackson's Mace Windu will be doing some major slicing-n-dicing with his lightsaber in Star Wars: Episode 2. That, and the next Matrix film comes out. Did I mention that Apes' actress Estella Warren is pretty hot, though? Also, one of my brothers saw Planet of the Apes last Saturday and said he expected the ending that the film had (he liked the film). I guess I must've been hangin' with an ignorant crowd last Friday if he liked the twist that was given to the conclusion of the Tim Burton remake. Oh well. The following was taken from an article on MSN.com:

Warning: Plot Holes is a column about narrative lapses in the movies. Today's entry gives away the twist at the end of Planet of the Apes.

A scene from Planet of the Apes
While Plot Holes usually delights in ridiculing movies that don't make sense, today it feels obliged to defend Tim Burton's Planet of the Apes remake. The movie's surprise ending has left some critics scratching their heads: The New York Times' Elvis Mitchell called the finale a "puzzler"; Slate's David Edelstein said it doesn't "make a lick of sense" and asked, "Has Burton lost his wits?"

"He hasn't—or at least, his Apes ending doesn't prove that he has. Yes, the shocker is wildly implausible, but it does hang together with a loopy sort of logic.

Here's the bit that's causing confusion (seriously, if you don't want to know the ending, please stop reading now). After a climactic battle on the apes' planet, astronaut Leo Davidson takes off in a spaceship and flies into an electromagnetic storm, with hopes of returning to Earth in the 21st century. While he's in the storm we see his chronometer spinning backward, and he does eventually crash-land on Earth—in Washington, D.C.'s Reflecting Pool, as a matter of fact. Only now, the Earth is ruled by apes too! In place of the Lincoln Memorial, there's a monument dedicated to Davidson's ape nemesis, Gen. Thade, for "saving the Earth for all apekind" or some such.

But Davidson has just traveled across the universe and time-warped centuries into the past. … So, how can Thade have already conquered Earth for the apes when he hasn't even been born on the ape planet yet?

Answer: Before Davidson leaves the ape planet, there's a quick shot of Limbo, the orangutan slave trader, rummaging through his spaceship and slyly pocketing something. Evidently whatever he pockets contains the secret to space travel. (Maybe it's a manual: "Space Travel So Easy, a Chimp Could Do It.") Thade, who's pointedly left alive at the end of the climactic battle, must have built a ship, flown into the time-warping electromagnetic storm, and landed on Earth at some point before Davidson returned. Then he led Earth's apes in a rebellion against humans, took over the Earth, and had the monument built for him.

Of course, back on their home planet, the apes don't even have simple motors yet. So, whatever Limbo takes from the spaceship allows them to, in Thade's lifetime, master physics, build computers, design spacesuits, test spacecraft, and send the general into space while he's still young enough to conquer the Earth. Remember, we didn't say it was plausible …"

-By Josh Daniel

Thursday, July 19, 2001

By the way, yesterday I saw Jurassic Park 3...and needless to say--I hate Tea Leoni's character. The Spider-Man trailer was dope though; although I already saw it on Entertainment Tonight a week ago. Velociraptors are cool.

Thursday, July 12, 2001

Yesterday, one of my friends and I watched Kiss of the Dragon. The movie was dope... Just like Bruce Lee, Jet Li beat the crap out of a dozen-plus inept karate students in one of the last fight scenes of the film, and made a guy bite the dust just by sticking an acupuncture (?) needle in the back of his neck! I wish I knew how to use another person's pressure points to my lethal advantage!! J/k. The next film I wanna see is Jurassic Park 3...which comes out next week.

Sunday, July 8, 2001

First of all, I hate Netscape Navigator!!! This is the sh*ttiest Internet browser ever invented. I was writing a post about me watching Scary Movie 2 last week when I was trying to scroll down the text box to get to the last sentence of my post. The text box wouldn't scroll down, so I tried to move that gray bar separating the text box with the black bar that has the link to view the Blog webpage and the date I last published a post. So what happened? I move the gray bar, and all of a sudden what I wrote in the text box disappeared!! There was no way to bring back what I wrote. Damn, I'm ticked... Stupid Netscape. Oh well... I would use Internet Explorer instead of Crapscape Navigator, but I'm in the main library in Cal Poly, Pomona right now (the comp back at my house is broken) and they don't have I.E. on their computers!!!


Anyways, let's get to what I originally was gonna write. I saw Fast and the Furious and Scary Movie 2 for free last week...just like my second viewing of Pearl Harbor two months ago...'cause my friend who works at the local AMC theater was able to hook me up with free guest passes. I already talked about Fast in my last post. Scary (too lazy to type out the entire title) was expectedly lame, stupid, gross, perverted and funny. It is the type of movie that you'd enjoy just as long as you don't dish out $5 for it (which I didn't do). The next and last film I'll probably see for free is Jurassic Park 3...which comes out in a few weeks. After that my friend is quitting AMC (or so he said) and is gonna take a trip to New York next month. Looks like I'll have to pay my own ticket for the upcoming American Pie 2--but that film should be worth it. Tara Reid and Shannon Elizabeth are in it, for cryin' out loud!


One more thing: the keyboard I'm using right now is also pissing me off! Stupid unresponsive buttons...

Tuesday, July 3, 2001

Yesterday, I saw Artificial Intelligence and today Fast and the Furious at the theater. Ironically, A.I. had a piece of crap ending whereas Fast and the Furious was actually a pretty interesting movie...if you like the import car scene (which I do--but only for the lovely Francine Dee, Jasmin Alejandrino and Kyleah Belle...among other chicks =0). About A.I., it should have ended 30 minutes earlier than it did. The way Haley Joel Osment reached his goal at the end was kinda B.S. Oh well. Don't get me wrong though, A.I. was a good film--but it was the ending that to me was the serious flaw. Blame it on Steven Spielberg's sentimental approach to filmmaking.

Sunday, July 1, 2001

Hope all of you have a happy Fourth of July this Wednesday!! I would write this exactly on Independence Day, but I dunno if Cal Poly (in Pomona) will be opened...since the computer at my house is broken right now. Oh well. Anyways, I heard that the film A.I.: Artificial Intelligence is pretty good...so I wanna see that flick. Robert Ebert gave Fast and the Furious thumbs up--so I might see that piece of crap also. Anywho, that's it for now (I'm tired of writing anyways ). Later!!