The Animated "Hobbit" - Wee Frustrations

It ends up that I may have to buy the DVD of 1977's "The Hobbit" by directors Rankin and Bash. You know those guys best as the director of all the seasonal TV specials that first and second grade teachers used to kill time and allow them to zone out until the holiday break.

This "Hobbit" blog is being written just so I can practice writing, so do not expect a true review. I was drinking vodka, experimenting with Malort and playing "WWE 2K16" until 7:00 am. When the "True Blood" inspired dreaming ended, I had an hour and a half to get ready for work. My plan is to pick up some groceries when I get out of work and maybe I'll check out some Black Friday deals at Walmart.

Fuck, it'll be Thursday at midnight. No deals for me. Well, groceries are needed, so I may not have the time to write in my journal to fulfill my strict practice of writing something each night. This blog will have to do.

The reason (I know, finally), that I need to buy this DVD is that I think I might be able to cut the Extended Peter Jackson "Hobbit" Trilogy into a more concise film. I'm aiming for 2:45.

In other words, I wasn't much frustrated in this animated title, just all the unnecessary stuff in the most recent incarnation of this Tolkien book. I mean, if you are going to have a Dwarf/Elf love tale, Peter Dinklage better have demanded it so that he could be cast in the film. No Tyrion, I cannot help but wonder how much time Jackson and Del Toro auteurism took up.

Del Toro may not have impressed me with "Hellboy 2's" Perlman/Blair chemistry, but there is no need for him to make up for it. Has Peter Jackson ever really told a love story? I will say "Heavenly Creatures" did have the intensity of one, but that's not what we got with the trilogy.

Now 80 minutes is not enough time to tell this story, so the action does not really happen in this film, so points to the new features. And I did like the Jackson films calling bullshit on a talking thrush saving Lake Town. But just because you ignored one bird doesn't allow you to get rid of the talking army of eagles.

"The Hobbit" trilogy ends up being too clever for its own good, but it is the superior version to be translated to the big screen. I figure if I can make the best version of his film, surely people will dedicate time to "Main Event of the Dead (treatments available by request at russthebus07@gmail.com).

Peoria Wise and a 90 min. Exception "Zombieland: Double Tap".

*Blog post started on June 25, 2020.

I might be making this post too difficult. After starting up "The Disgruntled's Real Championship Wrestling" blog, a schedule of when certain posts were supposed to be released was established. So some my personal opinions timeline is going to involve a bit of shuffling. The biggest fear, the topical stuff will not be that in the next two weeks.

…five minutes later.

#SpeakingOut is still coming up on Wrestling Inc. headlines, so I can be optimistic that the attitude about the scene will not change. Ring of Honor says they are going to address the sexual assault accusation brought up against one of their head bookers. They said they will investigate it, but with Jay Lethal still being on the roster despite his indiscretions, if action is taken, I will have material to continue blogging about the movement. This schedule though leaves me behind in terms of addressing the movement, when I could feel like I was amongst the first.

So far, 40 has shown how far behind I have been. I have attempted to be a voice against racism ("Racism Can Play in Peoria. What About Your Local Wrestling"), but it took me another five years to attend my first protest. Tomorrow is going to be the first time that I have ever given blood. Being afraid of needles gave me an excuse for 23 years, but after my wrist and inevitable reign over Peoria wrestling was broken, that is not the case. When you see pins with pus leaking from them in your arm, you will rationalize how you handle other pointy metal things being inserted into your body.

Another first for 40 that involves insertion would be a prostate exam. A parental freak out about a dermatitis breakout left OSF realizing that I may have been trying to avoid attentive medical care. I figured I could slip past the system for a year since my last labs, but they are going to get on me about actually finding a practitioner now. The biggest issue is going back to the beginning when it comes to my type two diabetes concerns.

They were probably right in doing whatever labs they could, but the circumstances were not fair. I was in Morton when this went down, so of course I was eating shit during that 90-minute drive. Obviously blood sugars were high, and based on that, it is back to the beginning about caring for my condition. With the exception of my last doctor, everybody forces me to endure the lecture about the need to focus on vegetables and laying off the booze. Unless they are going to give me a medicinal marijuana card, nothing will change. Give me a card, and half of the conditions might.

The following is a suggestion to encourage men of my age to care about their health and cancer concerns. Reward those who need to deal with a prostate exam the medical weed card. I think the doctors would be surprised to find out what we will do for drugs. Granted, the exam no longer intimidates me, but that is some personal stuff you probably do not want me to get into.

With all the firsts I am dealing with, it is indeed ironic that my best received blog was "40 Years is Enough". In the end, I am just like Peoria, always 10 years behind. At least my love for the hometown is now established. It just sucks to realize that I am socially retarded. How many wise, leftist women have been pitying me?

Zombieland: Double Tap

It has been 10 years since the zombie outbreak, but aside from the undead evolving into tougher, smarter or dumber beings, not much has changed. And that has become a problem for the timid Columbus, the fearless Tallahassee, the independent Wichita, and the restless Little Rock. After Columbus tries to shake things up with the bold move of proposing to Wichita, she and Little Rock write a beyond brief note to let the boys know that they are going their own way.

After losing his reason to be fatherly, Tallahassee is considering this a sign to be the explorer that his Blackfoot ancestors were while Columbus is quick to go to bed with the recently discovered, vapid Pinkberry freezer dweller Madison. These new lifestyles must take a backseat when Wichita returns to reload on ammunition to track down her sister who has gone on a pilgrimage to Graceland with snooty hipster and pacifist Berkley.

Despite his recent fling, Columbus sees this as a chance to win back Wichita. Tallahassee cannot pass up an opportunity to visit Elvis's home and punch Berkley. If Madison proves to not be too much of an annoyance, the mission seems rather simple. With 73 rules to protect them, what can possiblye go wrong?

If you enjoyed the first "Zombieland" as much as I did for its characters, this is a worthwhile sequel. It hits the same notes as the first like any comedy sequel but does not burden itself with wilder challenges for the characters to make sure the audience stays invested. This film is a band's sophomore effort.

After "Venom" and "Gangster Squad", you realize that Ruben Fleisner is not much of a director and his efforts to produce epic shots can wear thin. But being a straight out comedy, you are not focusing on those efforts. This means it is all about the script which suffers a bit since our characters are already established. In other words, the film cannot bring anything new to the table. Hence, if you like the characters, it will work for you. I will say that I could have done without the attempt to be overly meta with the Luke Wilson and Thomas Middleditch characters.

And the attempt to be meta may have been the excuse to provide the film with a lighter feel. Eventually the film ends up with a pacifist hippie commune. If you are watching a movie that prides itself on gore and humorous demises, you got to up the body count when it comes to annoying characters. You have a guaranteed audience with this sequel. The writers should have upped the extremes that they would take to impress the loyal fan base. At least we get treated to an early, and perhaps the greatest, mid credit sequence to guarantee that the viewing was worthwhile.

"Zombieland: Double Tap" is an amusing sequel for the fans of the first, but does not elevate the humor from the first film. The characters are protected very well, so it a good sequel, but feels more like a reunion feature than an effort to build upon the predecessor's greatness. You will get some enjoyment out of this flick, but you will not be asking for a "Triple Tap" despite the alliteration.

www.cinematerial.com - Zombieland: Double Tap

90-min. Prime Video: "Forbidden World" Away from the Bernie Bros

*Blog started on April 11, 2020.

Maybe I have lost some of my passion for politics. Acquaintances from Morton are sharing and reacting positively to my Facebook posts. What does it take to get unfollowed? I guess my tolerance for bullshit is gone. This week has led me to unfollow anyone implying that they are not going to vote for Joe Biden.

It all ends up being a conspiracy by the baby boomers. Millennials were given everything growing up, so they feel entitled. Thus, they need to get their way or no one gets their way. Their parents were playing the long game. Be pushed around and underappreciated by your crotch fruit so that these twats feel like the world owes them just as much as you. Hillary Clinton fairly beat Bernie Sanders, so they voted against all of their interests instead of protecting some of them via Jill Stein or Donald Trump.

The rode to hell is paved with good intentions. How else did you expect me to transition this rant to a Roger Corman movie? He knew that we needed "Alien" and "Star Wars" to feature over-the-top gore and female nudity, but what we got was a cinematic purgatory in "Forbidden World.

Forbidden World (1982)

Being awoken to battle some space pirates, Troubleshooter Mike Colby's robot custodian SAM-104 advises him that he has received a new assignment. The two are to head to planet Xarbia to contain a research experiment that may have gone wrong or horrendously right. Dr. Hauser and his team have been trying to develop a new food source to solve all galactic hunger concerns by creating organisms with Proto-B DNA. It seems a noble cause, but because it is playing God, they are isolated on this deep space planet.

This new DNA's metamorphic nature puts into question who is actually playing the all mighty on high. The latest mutation decided to kill all of other test subjects before cocooning itself in the lab. Its violent nature leaves Colby believing that it needs to be terminated, but Hauser and his primary assistants want to see how this plays out...even after it attacks the janitor and escapes the lab. 

Technically, the cleaning guy is still alive, just dissolving into protein with a pulse. That sounds like a fate worse than death, so the majority of the crew is ready to side with Colby's intentions. The minority seems a little to eager to further study the events, so everyone will eventually be on the same page, but will they have enough numbers to battle the large-toothed, intelligent insectoid that it has become?

IMDb.com - Forbidden Planet

Roger Corman's importance to cinema should make his last name an entry in the Oxford Dictionary. Aside that word should be the primary poster for "Forbidden World". It tells you the film knows what you want, but this is still a deal with the devil.

A few months ago, I had watched the Corman-produced "Galaxy of Terror". It was entertaining enough despite a haphazard story, so I expected this feature to be the same. Aside from the reuse of James Cameron designed sets and overall tackiness, this film lacks the originality of its predecessor, and once we witness the space dog fight (from Corman-produced "Battle Beyond the Starts") and concept of hypersleep, you know you are just settling into a cheap knock off of the biggest sci-fi of the time.

The acting is hindered by everyone trying to be either hip or sexy, with our male cast focusing on being David Carradine hot, so it feels like 2000's indie wrestling. Its special effects are all around laughable with an Ed Wood equivalent monster as the villain and a robot that just misses the mark. There are some good gore effects too start, but it all just becomes a mess of red and transparent gelatin by the end of the flick.

Despite all of its flaws, it does show the beauty of a good Corman production. In trying to differentiate itself from what it is ripping off, possible inspiration for classic films are present. The monster's development is very much like 1995's metamorphic alien film "Species", and the demise of the beast is very similar to the end of "Species 2". It attempts to improve on some of the sequences from "Alien", which you have to applaud the effort, and in turn offers up devices that may have been used in that film's sequels.

If anything beyond the production values can be said to have aged poorly, it is all the female nudity, but I can defend that. "Game of Thrones" first season is classic television and it shows us that sexposition is still a valid storytelling device.

With some Clark & Sheffield Vodka, Kahlua and Meijer's brand Italian Sweet Crème Coffee Creamer, "Forbidden World" was a fun experience. If you can talk some friends into watching it with you, there are few better celebrations of mediocrity. This is not art, but you will not feel dirty seeing classic films being subverted and perverted. You can accept that is just part of the deal if a flick has been labeled a Roger Corman Cult Classic.

IMDb.com - Forbidden Planet

90-min at $9.99 - "Rambo: Last Blood", Stallone Is a Sad Liam Neeson

I need to go to a Family Video at some point to check out what it costs to rent a DVD. $3.99 being a special rental rate for a movie on iTunes seems a bit high. It is especially high when you take into consideration that iTunes has a $4.99 for purchase section.

It has been 10 years since John Rambo had returned to the United States from Thailand, and the ranching life seems to suit him. He is now medicated, but old habits are hard to kick as he maintains a tunnel network under the family home. If anything, his paranoia allows him to be the perfect uncle to the orphaned Gabrielle who he has groomed into an equestrian ace and a scholar.

Despite having a loving family, Gabrielle cannot shake the feeling of being unwanted. This leads her to keep in contact with her delinquent friend Gizelle in Mexico. Her hopes are that her friend maybe able to locate the father who abandoned her. Gizelle succeeds and Gabrielle heads to confront him. Of course Rambo's niece does not know that Gizelle survives by working for a human trafficking's ring. When she does not return, Rambo throws his meds away and crosses the border with bringing along a hammer and a handgun.

Will the arms Rambo brought be enough to take her back? If you are the kingpins who took her, you better hope it is. He is only trying to be a hero. If anything happens to his family, you will be the target of his wrath.

"Rambo: Last Blood" was not as much as a hit when compared to the fourth installment. This left me wondering if it was just a bad movie. After comparing the Rotten Tomatoes scores and not seeing much of a difference, I determined this film deserves a chance to be viewed. This just shows that we need an action movie equivalent to the Tomatoes scale to better serve us fans of gratuitous violence. Too bad "Bloody Elbows" was already taken.

"Last Blood" is a revenge film, but it makes the mistake of having the instigating issue occur at the 45-minute mark. This is not the film I was hoping for. I was not interested in Stallone replacing Neeson in terms of using their particular set of skills. Because Sylvester Stallone wants to show that Rambo is finally civilized, he does not use his special traits when he comes to the rescue. The results only further humanize him, and that is not want I want from this legend.

Also, the action is reserved for the last 15 minutes of the film. Once Rambo finally kills/brutalizes someone in the bastardized predecessors (two through four), the action feels constant. The screenplay allows us to thoroughly enjoy the climax because we want his vengeance to be obtained, but it is not the journey we wanted to take to get there. Being a member of "The Last Jedi" is, at worst, the third best "Star Wars" film camp, I appreciate that Stallone and Matthew Cirulnic tried something new with the formula by attempting to rip our hearts out emotionally, but the past formula cannot be abandoned.

A part from the story missteps, the film suffers from having few opportunities for director Adrian Grunberg to shine. Perhaps he did not have the ability to shine, but I enjoyed his previous theatrical release, "Get the Gringo", so I know he was not talentless. Again, the finale is great, but with everything beyond the Rambo Ranch scenes being shot at night with no environmental effects (rain, dust, etc.), it just feels cheap. There are some scenes that could work in Grindhouse features, but he is making a "Rambo" movie, not a "Machete" sequel, so the efforts are lost on the typical filmgoer.

To get to the goretastic finale, you must love the character of Rambo to enjoy "Last Blood". I fall into that category, but I could see a lot of people being bored with this flick and skip to the literal heart-wrenching conclusion. If only we still had FlixMix ("Boogeymen: The Killer Compilation" and "Ultimate Fights") around to remedy this situation. Could you imagine a compilation film composed of the best scenes from films that might not be worth your time? Now "That's Entertainment."

9-Gag - We Can Relate.

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"Ninja III: The Domination" - A Cannon Film/The Good Kind of Bank Fraud

*Blog post started on June 12, 2020

I suppose I should have been paying more attention to the movies "How Did This Get Made" had been riffing about since the pandemic occurred. Surely besides the recently release "Bloodshot", their producers must have been making an extra effort to find free movies from streaming services instead of just lousy ones.

Five minutes later...

There was no rhyme or reason as far as I could tell. It appears they are not in league with Shout! Factory which is kind of sad. Are the downloads lower when they cover a Roger Corman classic or a product of the Cannon Group? I am just saying that those films are comedy home runs while "Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets", "Underworld: Blood Wars", and "Space Jam" tend to be horrid ideas that only The Asylum would try to knock off.

Films with at least 10's of millions of dollars as a minimum budget have to consider the concept of shame. If they fail, they will be remembered in infamy. This is why "Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films" was necessary. These films can be fondly remembered for solely being escapism and not art. It is basically mental porn, a break from your day or much needed relief.

Historians do not like to bring up porn when there is art to discuss, so there is a greater chance that we will lose films like "Ninja III: The Domination" from our collective consciousness. If this film (or most Cannon flicks not featuring Chuck Norris) had a plot that made as much sense as "Deep Throat", perhaps the conversation would be different.

Six bodyguards were not enough to protect a yuppie scientist as an evil ninja makes short work of them on a fairway. This is not your traditional Japanese assassin because stealth is quickly abandoned, which leads to the police easily finding him on the golf course and quickly dispatch the entire force to stop this threat, green fees be damned. Perchance, the ninja may just be respecting the sanctity of the course. Regardless, he seems to not only mean to take no prisoners, but goes out of his way to maximize his kill count.

Eventually, the police shoot him enough times that he retreats to die in seclusion. Thanks to being discovered by phone lineswomen, Chrissy, he gets a break. When she goes to assist, he gives her his sword, and along with it, his spirit. Also being an aerobics instructor, she is the perfect weapon for the ultimate killer. His ability to take over her body assures that he will kill the remainder of the police force that is responsible for his death because only a ninja can destroy another ninja's spirit.

"Ninja III: The Domination" provides the audience with everything that was accepted as cool in the early 80's. The generally considered nonsensical story (Maybe I am overly observant. I was the excuse a bunch of my high school classmates used to rewatch "Donnie Darko". Russ will make sense of it.) allows for anything to happen like possessed arcade machines and V8 as an aphrodisiac. Every kind of ploy to keep the viewer's interest seems to lead them being forgiving of a ninja film with no exterior night scenes.

I hate to say it, but there is nothing great about the production of the film. The editing is poor, the visual effects outside of creepy laser and doll on string effects are bad or nonexistent, we see that our female lead's nipples have been taped down, and it seemed designed for HBO airings. F.W. Murnau (per John Malkovich) said, "If it isn't in frame, it doesn't exist!" Making sure to get all those TV replays, director Sam Firstenberg crams all the action into the 3x4 perspective. That results in shooting a ninja while forming a circle to attack more ridiculous.

The acting is all passable and you cannot help but enjoy "Big Trouble in Little China's" James Hong (Lo Pan) as an exorcist. What makes the feature work is that is so over-the-top with its premise(s) and set pieces, you want to see how it resolves. It is like the creative forces knew that this film could only be so bad that it's good, and they were just careful enough for it to stay at that level. No risks were taken to try and deliver art, so it does not insult the audience's intelligence.

When I left "Ninja III: The Domination", my only thought was that we need a cheesy version of this film every decade. Its charm is that captures everything we look back shamefully on in terms of trends to ground a ridiculous story. This is what we should have started seeing when the parody film genre had played itself out.

"Ninja III" is fun for fun sake. It will not turn you away with being too violent, too sexualized, or too mean spirited. You are suppose to just sit back and forget about your troubles. I was thinking about how I wished it could have mixed some "Home Alone 2: Lost in New York" elements when they had a battle in a dilapidated home. Who would not rather do that than thing about moving to a place where the police may have dug out a bullet from the bedroom floor? This is one of the best Cannon Films because it is an absolute escape.

Pinterest - Ed Naha

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