Sunday, December 09, 2007

Some favorite movie camera shots

Some of my favorite camera shots and angles

Jimmy Stewart in Vertigo
Alfred Hitchcock was the master of using the camera to create tension and emotion


Above and below - Cary Grant in North by Northwest




Luc Besson's Léon (The Professional)


Rose McGowan in Robert Rodriguez's Planet Terror

"P-51! Cadillac of the sky!"

Steven Spielberg's Empire of the Sun starring Christian Bale long before his gravely voiced Batman days.

Thursday, October 04, 2007

Cavemen... Here's to Extinction!

OH GOD MAKE IT STOP!!! Hot branding irons, ancient water torture, toothpicks under my fingernail, anything... just don't make me watch another episode of this horrid show! In a 15 second commercial it was funny but a TV show? That was the worst 24 minutes of television I've seen in a long time, and I thought K-Ville was bad! I'd rather have the Journeyman take me back to the time cavemen and leave me there then to watch another episode of this show! They just strung one lame stereotype after another and another and just kept it going - there was nothing funny AT ALL in this show...weak, Oh so weak...

The only thing that kept me from gouging my eyes out with a hot poker than to continue watching was Kaitlin Doubleday... very easy on the eyes...

Tuesday, October 02, 2007

Journeyman S1E2

So far I really like this show, it's Quantum Leap without the body snatching.
Kevin McKidd, who also played Lucius Vorenus in HBO's Rome (a great show except for the fact that all the ancient Romans spoke with a British accent :-) Plays a character who is sucked randomly through time to help people in the past to make decisions or correct wrongs... not an original idea but so far done well.
Moon Bloodgood's character of Dan's ex who had supposedly died 9 years earlier only to find out that she's still alive and somehow traveling through time herself adds some great curiosity dynamics to the show... where has she been? What does she do? What's her connection? etc... Hopefully the writers give you enough information to keep it interesting but also leave enough mystery to keep it interesting...

This weeks episode sucked Dan back to the cabin of an airplane in the 1970's and they didn't hold back on any 70's stereotype! Sexy stewardesses in mini skirts serving cans of Tab in a smoke filled cabin with "Get Down Tonight" by KC & The Sunshine Band blaring while people drank, talked, and walked around like it was a disco. Little kids playing with toy guns while doctors drank scotch and everybody oblivious to the needs of a pregnant woman in labor...

...and speaking of labor - they just had to so the woman's water breaking all over their feet and the floor (and now I'll share that image with you!) ... ahhhhh!

Monday, October 01, 2007

Prison Break S3E3 - The Faceless Sarah

Eh, what can I say? Prison Break is Prison Break, it's about as realistic as an old Twilight Zone episode... What I'd like to know is what's up with Sarah? Budget cuts on the show or are they planning some kind of twist? They have yet to show her face. You see her in the photos but every time they've "shown" her and LJ (who have both been kidnapped) you see LJ's face but they never show Sarah. Only the back of her head or her legs - never her face. So are they just using a stand-in for her when shooting the show or are they not showing her face as part of the show's plot... Hmmmmm...

...back of her head when talking to Michael on the phone...

...just her feet and legs when getting into the van... Hmmmmm....

...and this? Well, this is just disturbing...

UPDATE: Ok, so I guess Sarah was let go from the show, It's no secret I just haven't been paying attention. That explains the Cousin IT hair-doo and bad camera angles. It also opens up the possibility that it's Sarah's head in the box at the end of the episode. It's better to kill her off than have a wig as one of the main characters. Too bad really since she was my favorite character, the only one to have some depth to her character other than T-Bag. They could just use cardboard cutouts with one facial expression for everyone else on the show...

Heroes S2E2 - This little piggie went to the market....

Katie Carr as the independent and bold Irish lass, cleaning Peter's wounds

Much better this week!

This week’s episode started off really weak with 3 bud guys from Ireland beating up Peter for stealing the iPods they wanted to steal… OK, so they find him handcuffed and beaten inside a shipping container and assume he stole the merchandise they’re looking for… where did he hide it, up his ass? This is just an asinine storyline, nobody, even Irish crooks are this stupid! I thought it would be all downhill from there but I was pleasantly surprised, the rest of the episode was great… Suresh in his role as a mole, Peter rediscovering some of his powers with the Irish lass, and everybody’s favorite cheerleader cutting off her own toe… good stuff!


Eriko Tamura looking absolutely kissable while waiting for a kiss from her "hero"

Sad little Hiro, unable to take credit and kiss the "princess"

...and this little piggie went "wee, wee, wee" all the way home!

Claire's toe growing back... nice!

Thursday, September 27, 2007

BIONIC BEEEYATCH!

OK, so I can't fully pass judgment on this show yet but it's not looking good... I'm actually in the middle of watching this as I'm typing this but so far... the whole TV cliche thing where someone is giving something incredible, something most people would pay money to have and she gets pissed about it, think of the alternative. She's in an accident, loses her arms, an eye, both her legs and who knows how bad her other injuries are and she is pissed that not only did they give her prosthetic limbs that not only look good but are bionic! Quit yer bitchin' and enjoy it! Oh, you don't like it you ungrateful little wench? Well, lets take off the shiny new limbs and the special little healing microbes and lets see how you like life then...

I love Katee Sackhoff in Battlestar Galactica and I noticed that according to imdb.com that shes's only in 2 episodes of this show which I hope is true because I want to see her return to Battlestar which is one of the more brilliantly show ever written. I know that they "killed" her off according to BG but there was no visual proof so I'm expecting her to make a comeback.
...oh hey, another BG sighting in this show - Aaron Douglas

Complaint Newsflash ... I'm still in the middle of watching the show and they just did that whole, youngster is pissed off because the adult abandoned them and although everything can be fixed with a simple explanation but for some rease they just can't say it... such BS....

"What do you want from me?"
"Honestly I'm not sure."
Well neither do the viewers! Why is Starbuck beating up Bionic woman #2? We don't know, they don't know, the writers don't even know, I guess they just thought it would make for a cool chick fight scene....

HEROES Premiere

Hiro's "hero" turns out to be a fast talking English con man - of course I'm sure Hiro will show him the error of his ways and compel him into becoming a better person and becoming the "hero" he's meant to be - why do I say this? Because it's the cliche thing to do and this show has no real imagination...

Heroes is back - yay (I said, very sarcastically) Whay am I not thrilled like the rest of the world , you ask? Because this show SUCKS! The first season started off good... interesting... and then it all went down hill. I bacames so predictable, sooooo lame. Last season I said the if the season finally ends in a lame fight scene where each "hero" gets to chip in to fight the bad guy just as weak excuse for each to show off their "super-power" that I won't watch the show this season... Well I just watched the this seasons premiere... does that mean that I was wrong in my prediction of the first seasons series finally? NO - it just means I'm a liar! The second half of last season and especially the season finally SUCKED BALLS! But out of the great kindness of my heart I thought I'd give this season another look-see and so far IT SUCKS BALLS!!! OK, so at the end of last season we knew that the Petrelli brothers would survive, we knew that Syler survived... of course EVERYBODY SURVIVED! Couldn't they take some kind of chance in their wirting? No I guess not and not only that but the said "screw any kind of suspence" they're so scared that they may loose a viewer if they don't see their favorite character that not only did they not surprise up by bumping anyone of importance off that they brought basically everyone back in the first episode!!! I can't say enough about how weak the writing in this show is... the series started off with a great premise and characters but then they F'd it all up!

Hmmm... they don't usually stick a sexy-chickie-baby like this into a show unless they plan on expanding the character... love interest for Hiro of the reason for the English samurai to change his selfish ways - the way this show plays I see it only going one of these two ways....

K-Ville

O-MY-GOD! Is it possible to make a show any worse that this? They took the oldest stereotypical TV cop characters and wrapped it around a pretentious and preachy "save New Orleans" premise and then threw in a dash of absolute ridiculousness!

Just a few examples:

  • Cop pulls a gun on his partner because he know his way around town.
  • Ex-cop, after two years of absence, suddenly starts popping up abound every corner saving the day and he is able to do this with only the aid of a police radio.
  • New cop turns out to be an ex con who has a second chance because the prison he was in got flooded and his criminal record got washed away.
  • Cop discovers his new partners criminal past by going through a stack of old wanted posters!
The cops go around drinking on the job, shiiting at everything in sight, and solving the crimes while at the crime scene with their cliche police chief.

NO TO MENTION... that this show makes New Orleans look more dangerous that a lawless gunslinger town from the Old West. Step into New Orleans and you have a 9/10 chance of dieing within 24 hours... if I was from New Orleans I'd be pretty pissed with this show...

PRISON give-me-a-frickin BREAK

WHY WHY WHY DO I WATCH THIS SHOW? I've complained from the very beginning and yet I keep watching - WHY? It's so bad, so predictable... the premise and circumstances are so ridiculous that it's laughable... Wentworth commits a crime to get into prison to break his brother out (I son't go back into all the ridiculousness of seasons 1 & 2) and now big bro is out of prison scott-free and little bro is now in a Mexican prison, a Mexican prison that seems to be have every other nationality other than Mexicans. A prison basically with the plot from the movie "No Escape" where the prisoners are the worst of the worst that they are left to fend for themselves. Not only does Mr. Schofield somehow get thrown into this "wort of the worst" prison but so does Bellick, T-Bag, Mahone (you;d think that an ex FBI agent would have some connections ) THEY ALL END UP IN THE SAME PLACE!!! And why is Bellick walking around looking like Quazi Moto put through a blender?


I'm Back

OK - The new tv season has started and after a year and a half of of absence from posting to this blog I have come back. Not out of boredom but out of necessity... the few series premiers that I've seen so far have been so bad that I have to find some way to vent!!! But this time to make it a bit easier and quicker to keep up with my blogging I won't be doing my own screen captures for every show...