Guest Review: Drag Me to Hell (2009)

Release Date: 2009
Director: Sam Raimi
Starring: Alison Lohman, Justin Long, Dileep Rao
Tagline: "Christine Brown has a good job, a great boyfriend, and a bright future. But in three days, she's going to hell."
Random Trivia: Both Bruce Campbell and Ellen Page (Juno) had to skip the project due to scheduling issues. In Page's case, it was the lead role.

Horror. Where the fuck did it go?

Horror is a genre at war with itself currently. There are two camps in this battle: Gore Porn (Saw, Hostel, and their clones), and remakes (Friday the 13th, Halloween, and the forthcoming Nightmare on Elm Street).

Neither side has a particularly spectacular argument for their approach at the moment. While a few of them were decent - I have a soft spot for Jason Voorhees, as well as most of the Saw movies - the majority of them are utter dreck. My Bloody Valentine 3D? The entire film had a single cool scene (if you saw it, you know it - the pick-axe through the head with the eyeball stuck to the end of it).

Most of the movies coming out of horror-ville of late have been warmed over dreck with weak scripts, weak thrills and chills, and weak acting. When it comes to horror, weak acting and an iffy script are almost expected, but that's where a solid story and some serious scares come in. If you don't have those, you're dead in the water.

What the genre has really been lacking of late has been a serious, original scary movie. Something not based on a film from ten or twenty years ago. Something that's not just a series of gruesome scenes with little or no reason to exist. Something not self-referential, not striving for humour (if it happens, fine, but don't force it). Something not concerned with Scream, Saw, or college-aged kids in Abercrombie & Fitch outfits driving SUVs to abandoned houses or summer camps.

So lets look at what a compelling horror flick needs:

- Scares. The jump in your seat, bite your nails, or turn your stomach kind. Best if you can manage all three.
- A menace. Jason. Michael Myers. Freddy Krueger. Leatherface. The fucking critters were scary little furballs. CHUCKY, JACK!
- A story. And note, this is not the same as a solid script. We expect lame dialogue and for the brain dead camp counselors to split up at the worst time and run straight into the killer/monster, but at least give us a reason for the movie to exist!
- Gore that isn't just broken bones and blood. Go for the pus, the slime, the mutation! Give us monsters and things that go bump in the night again!

Drag Me to Hell takes note of all this, and cashes in in every category, whilst being a surprisingly well-acted outing. Why?

Because it's Sam Fucking Raimi. Doing something very cool here - along with a script co-written by brother Ivan, getting back to his horror roots.

Army of Darkness may have been more fantasy than horror at points, but there is no denying it as the pinnacle of all that is awesome. Going back a bit further, Evil Dead, and sequel/remake Evil Dead 2 are really cabin in the woods style horror flicks, traditional and to the point for the most part.

Drag Me to Hell is very similar.



Simple story: Christine Brown (Alison Lohman) is a loan officer for a small bank. She's looking for a promotion, something to get her ahead in the field - and the assistant manager chair across from her desk sits empty, beckoning her. For her manager (veteran character actor David Paymer), it's a toss up between her, and new kid at the bank Stu, played by Reggie Lee. Stu's the type of slick office go-getter that's easy to hate: greasing the palms with basketball tickets, sucking up, and digging at co-workers in all the right places. The type of guy who would overhear the boss asking you to pick him up a sub, and place an order right along side him like you were HIS lackey as well. Then bitch that you got his order wrong to boot.

This does not sit well with Christine, but she's too reserved to do much about it. Still, she needs to get noticed, take the lead, and to do that, she needs to show some backbone. She is, after all, the quiet farm girl, working her way on up - much to her own embarrassment, and the annoyance of her boyfriend's upper class mother. Clay, said boyfriend, played by Justin Long, has got to be the youngest professor I've ever seen, and the most useless male "lead" in a film in a long time. [HalfBaked's Note - I actually liked Justin Long's performance, he did well with the role]

That's not too big an issue, however. This is a film about the girls; Lohman's Christine, and an old gypsy lady played by relative unknown Lorna Raver, who is in desperate need of a mortgage extension. Looking to show that she can make tough decisions, Christine turns down her application - a grave mistake that ends in the crazy old bitch attacking her in the bank's parking garage, and cursing her with the Lamia, a demon that will torment her from the shadows for three days before dragging her soul down to hell - literally.



My buzz is in full swing as the story unfolds. With no notes to go on, I'm relying on a very foggy memory to get me through this review. Here's what's in store:

A ton of fucking jump scares! Lurched from my seat at least a half-dozen times. That's no small feat. [HB- "Wuss"] I sometimes consider jump scares - where there's no pay-off, i.e. fast cut to a creepy looking coat rack - a cheat, but here, they're used effectively, and many that look like cheats turn out to be anything but. Case in point - ooh, it's a scary fucking handkerchief. Until it IS a scary fucking handkerchief and floats up to your face then tries to fucking smother you.

And how many times did the old gypsy lady hoark or honk into that snotrag anyway? [HB- "I counted 5 I think"]



Gross. There's plenty of gross-out here as well. Stephen King once said that if you can't terrify them, go for the gross out. Sam Raimi must have been listening. Mucus, pus, bugs, worms, and fuck - embalming fluid flooding out of a corpse into the open mouth of Miss Brown. How much goo does this bitch swallow in this movie?!? [HB- She does take a lot of money shots, but I don't know how much she actually swallowed. No one ever swallows...]

As an added bonus, there's a goat. A fucking goat, and it is all that is amazing for WTF moments whilst watching a film baked. It's brought in during a seance that goes horribly wrong, one of the few horror movie cliches that Raimi hits in Drag Me to Hell, but the goat makes everything forgivable. EVERYTHING.



The movie does have its faults - if I never hear anyone say "I don't know what to believe anymore," it'll be too soon, and Justin Long really only has one gear, and it's annoying. The ending also forces you to accept that Christine, who for the entire flick has been intelligent if naive, will go full-retard at the last minute and begin acting like a rash action movie chick.

There's also a bit of a message going on in Drag Me to Hell, what with the financial crisis, recession, housing collapse in the U.S., and how unjust the system really is - but Raimi wisely keeps the preaching to a minimum, and focuses on the scares.



Minor quibbles aside, Drag Me to Hell is a return to real fucking horror. With a PG-13 rating at that.

*Hey Guys, HalfBaked here too. I saw this with Lightly in theatres so I added in some comments if I felt like it...and my overall would actually be a 5 out of 5 because of the fact it's a Horror Movie that was done well, which is hard to come by now-a-days. (and props for doing it with PG-13!)

Overall rating: 3/4 Baked (4 out of 5)

Guest Review: Star Trek (2009)

Release Date: 2009
Director: J.J. Abrams
Starring: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Leonard Nimoy, Eric Bana, Simon Pegg, John Cho, Anton Yelchin, Karl Urban
Tagline: "The Future Begins"
Random Trivia: Abrams was not a Star Trek fan growing up. Gene Roddenberry first floated the idea of a Star Trek prequel in 1968. Talk picked up again in the late 80s/early 90s, and a script titled Starfleet Academy made the rounds for a while. Yelchin has now played both a young Chekov and a young Kyle Reese in Terminator: Salvation. Joshua Jackson, of Dawson's Creek/Fringe fame, auditioned for Kirk. I don't wanna wait... for this Romulan attack, to be over...

Better late than never. Yes, it came out a few weeks ago, but here's a belated Star Trek review. See, I lack plot devices like time travel when it comes to getting shit done. Damn it!

Mild spoilers ahead.

My review in one word: MegaFuckin'HolyAwesomeBatman [HB- Batman is awesome, and so is this movie.]



I didn't say it would be a real word.

Where to start with this... when J.J. Abrams was tapped to helm a Star Trek reboot, I was curious. The guy has serious chops - I need to catch up with it, but Lost has definitely caught my interest. Random people I meet seem to constantly recommend Fringe. Seriously, they walk up to me off the street and say "Hey buddy... watch Fringe." It's creepy. I enjoyed Cloverfield, shaky-cam and all, for what it was - a big monster movie that was all kinds of brain dead fun.

So you had me interested. Abrams has written, directed, or produced some pretty solid material over the last few years - and then he happened to mention that he wasn't a Star Trek fan.

Curious.

Here's the thing - I'm not really a Star Trek fan either. I was too young for the original series, although I did see the sixth movie during its original theatrical run (and thought it was a pretty decent flick given I'd only seen a handful of the original series episodes, and The Voyage Home on VHS).

When The Next Generation was at its peak, everyone around me seemed to love it, and I did jump on the bandwagon for a while. Q, the Borg, the Romulans, a solid cast, Data's quest to understand humanity and how exactly he fit into the universe... thematically, this is probably one of the deepest Sci-Fi shows to this day. And the pinnacle of the franchise, quality wise. Argue all you like over which is better, ToS or TNG, but The Next Generation was able to do much, much more given modern technology, a bigger budget, and more time on the air.

On the silver screen, Generations bridged the two series quite well, and was followed up by First Contact, which brought back The Borg. After that, it was downhill for the next two Next Generation movies, and the small screen series that followed suffered from Department of Redundancy Department syndrome - too many episodes covering the same themes. Deep Space Nine had its moments but was often overshadowed by Babylon 5, and eventually, even the writers came to realize that the space station setting was too restrictive, adding in the Defiant. Voyager became yawn-worthy, and Enterprise just didn't spark much interest.

The franchise wasn't dead in the water, but it needed to either disappear for a while, or at least get a drastic face lift. A non-fan would be just the person to trigger that.

Cue the Abrams. Using a time travel plot device to create an alternate time-line for the original series Enterprise crew, and assembling a superb cast, Abrams has pulled off one of if not the best series reboot in ages.

Casting is spot on. This has been said in review after review, but close your eyes: Karl Urban has clearly done his homework. He goes above and beyond with his portrayal of country doctor in space Bones McCoy, taking over from Deforest Kelly.



Heroes bad-guy Zach Quinto looks, if not sounds, like Leonard Nimoy, and he really had the most difficult task here: Original Spock Leonard Nimoy is in the film, playing what has come to be called Spock Prime - Spock as he exists in the "future" of the original series time-line. Advanced in years, but still working to solve all sorts of Federation and Vulcan issues, logically.

Spock is the catalyst for this film, and his inclusion triggers all of the events to come. Or the events of the past. However you want to view it, his failure to save the Romulans in their time of need triggers Eric Bana's Nero to head back in time to destroy Spock, attacking the wrong ship too early in history and creating an alternate future that allows Abrams to do as he pleases without concern to cannon while appeasing die-hard Trekkies (or most of them at least).



Long story short: Nero shows up and wants to wipe out Spock, old Spock (Spock Prime) goes back as well. Nero arrives a tad early and attacks the Kelvin while the ship is under the command of Kirk Sr. and the eventual commander of the Enterprise, Christopher Pike (Bruce Greenwood), who later on becomes a mentor for Chris Pine's James T. Kirk. Without giving too much away, history is altered, and Kirk reluctantly - more to show off than anything - signs up for Starfleet Academy. See what they did there?



Urban's McCoy befriends Kirk early on, while Spock sees only a hotshot in Kirk, and takes some convincing by Spock Prime that their is, indeed, grounds for a friendship.

How Kirk comes to sit in the Captain's Chair of NCC-1701, and how Spock becomes his first mate, is covered along the way. All the major players are introduced, and each gets a chance to display their respective trademarks - Bones' country drawl, Chekov's accent troubles, Kirk's passion for the extra-terrestrial ladies, Spock's internal and external conflict as a half-human, half-vulcan - with a mother played by Wynonna Ryder?!? I must be high... oh wait...

Effects wise, prepare to be floored. Paramount spared no expense and Abrams got the most out of what he had to work with. Since this is, after all, a sci-fi summer blockbuster I can gladly report that the effects don't rip you out of the movie for a change.

Lightly Baked Observations:

- Sulu signs up for an away mission because he has some combat/weapons experience... fencing! wtf? Except that... John "Where the Fuck Is Kumar?" Cho pulls some bad-ass shit with a blade that actually makes this joke pay off
- Pegg's Scotty is hilarious, although introduced late in the film... keep your eye open for tribbles! I didn't catch them til they were pointed out to me later.
- Yelchin was actually better in Terminator: Salvation - his Kyle Reese impression is pretty impressive, no pun intended, but his Chekov isn't bad either
- the red shirt is a tool! and yes, he bites the dust on the away mission

Screw you, red shirt. You're just fodder anyway.

The only downside - the green alien chick Kirk beds down could have been hotter. [HB- And could have been much less clothed.]

Final thoughts: With the creation of an alternate time-line, Abrams can do just about anything with sequels. If he's got some balls - and it seems like he does - he could pull off some pretty awesome shit. Bring about contact with the Borg early. Kill off a major character. Bring in Seven of Nine and the hot Vulcan chick from Enterprise... bow chicka-wow-wow...

Anything is possible in the final frontier. Well maybe not that last one, unfortunately...

Overall rating: Fully Baked (5 out of 5)

Guest Review: Get Smart's Bruce and Lloyd: Out of Control

Release Date: 2008
Director: Gil Junger
Starring: Masi Oka, Nate Torrence, Jayma Mays, Larry Miller
Tagline: "Loved Get Smart? Get more!"
Random Trivia: Masi Oka worked as a digital effects artist for ILM on Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, Star Wars Episode 2: Attack of the Clones, and Star Wars Episode 3: Revenge of the Sith


Lightly Baked here with a film so obscure many of you were probably unaware of its existence: Get Smart's Bruce and Lloyd: Out of Control.

If you're just tuning in, Bruce and Lloyd were the tech geeks playing Q to Steve Carrell's Maxwell Smart in the big screen revamp of Get Smart. Played by Heroes' Masi Oka and Studio 60 from the Sunset Strips's Nate Torrence, respectively, Bruce and Lloyd are essentially the asian geek and the fat nerd. Dweebish to the point of awkward humour, designed to be nearly interchangeable stereotypes (frequent mix-ups between the two names - "No, he's Bruce" - being a running gag throughout the film), the duo actually generate more laughs per minute than their big-screen source film. Of course, in comparison to that particular snorefest, that's no great feat.



I'm a few bong hits past baked for this one. We start out with a cheese B-movie intro of windy jungle dark at night and creepy music that looks more like an episode of Buffy than a straight-to-DVD spin-off of a major release. Think "It was a dark and stormy night" style cheese. As we peel past the jungle we find ourselves in a house as a group of soldiers looking like UN rejects bursts in. Their leader, whose name I neither pick up nor care about, takes the owner - we're told he's a scientist - hostage, forcing the poor doctor to work for him. Obviously, this scientist is the unwilling brains of some greater scheme. How do we know? Well, lead baddy tells his men "Not the brain" as they're about to beat him. How's that for dialogue?

Not a solid start, but there's a few options at this point: Complete cheese B-Movie, complete failure (I actually like cheese B-movies so this has its own option), or semi-decent spin-off.

Surprisingly, this goes the route of the latter. Again, this is not a glowing recommendation - Get Smart itself sucked. Still, there's a phone booth gag early on that sees Bruce and Lloyd stuck in the elevator from Control's underground lair that actually worked better than most of the gags in Get Smart, including the miniature crossbow in the airplane bathroom bit. It also makes one wonder why phone booth doors open inwards.

Oka is so geeky that he's actually hard to watch early on, but by the time he gets the girl - a forensics expert who constantly smells of rotting flesh - we've actually grown fond of him. Which is another sad little tidbit - Bruce and Lloyd are given more character growth in this flick that Maxwell Smart is in the main film.



Speaking of his forensics expert girlfriend, she has a few scene stealing moments - dropping her cell phone in a cadaver during an autopsy, and "I work with dead bodies - sometimes I need to unwind." Maybe these come off as slightly more humorous when you're high. They did for me.

The supporting cast in this spin-off, however, well... acting wise - ouch. Definitely lacking the budget of Get Smart (obviously), there's really no notable appearances other than a few moments with Patrick Warburton, and a quick scene with Anne Hathaway. Oh, and Larry Miller as both a Control Chief and CIA bigwig. Meh. Dual roles are overdone. Torrence and Oka fair pretty well however, and their likability as geeks actually carries the movie pretty far. As a bonus, their awkward social skills come off as relatively genuine (most likely because, well, they are).

Now, back to Bruce and Lloyd. One of the rather cool feats of this film is that it runs concurrent to the events of Get Smart - meaning that B and L, as I'm going to call them this one time, are having their own little adventure while 86 and 99 are fighting off the forces of Kaos and a homo-erotic Dwayne Johnson.

Story-wise, Out of Control centers around the theft of tech geek's Bruce and Lloyd's penultimate invention, an invisibility blanket. Think of the cool elvish cloak Frodo and Sam used in Lord of the Rings, with military applications. Control wants it. The CIA wants it. And apparently, rogue governments and the agents of Kaos want it as well.



Along the way, Lloyd is given a love interest who's a spy herself. And way, way out of his league (see how that's funny? Fat guy and hot chick? We call that Peter Griffin syndrome. Or Homer Simpson-itis. For reference, see Gleason, Jackie). A couple of CIA agents make humorous (not really) foils, and a few CIA loving torture jokes are thrown into the mix - "We're the CIA. When we do something, that makes it ethical."

Actually, I rather liked that last line.

So here's where we are at halftime: Bruce got his girl thanks to Lloyd inventing a spray that masks her eau du rotting flesh smell. Lloyd has a hard-on for a super hot foreign girl - who may be a spy herself, and might just be to blame for the missing invisibility blanket. Lloyd has to practice pick-up skills on the snooty Control secretary (I didn't look but I'm pretty sure she's the same actress from Get Smart). Actually, Lloyd is pretty creepy during these scenes. Like, here's some candy little girl creepy.

Maybe that's just because my eyes are glazing over.

There's exploding labs, the geeks on a mission, and a couple of subtle reminders that the events of Get Smart are still unfolding, the most obvious being the aforementioned appearance of Anne Hathaway, bitching out Lloyd whilst thinking he's Bruce for giving Maxwell better toys than her.

And, suddenly, there's bananas. I can't explain that. You'll just have to see for yourself.

The only thing that really prevents me from recommending this flick on a rainy day is that you need to be somewhat familiar with the events of Get Smart to really pick up on every nuance. Making this a half-decent companion film to a movie that was an utter bore.

And, to be honest, this flick isn't that good - it's just good in comparison to Get Smart.

Still, if it comes down to it, or if you're just a Masi Oka or Nate Torrence fan - and I know there's literally tens of you - pick this one. At the very least, cast and crew seem to be having fun with it.



One last thought: There were boobs that jiggled. In a top, unfortunately.

Overall rating: 1/4 Baked (2 out of 5)

Guest Review: Get Smart (2008)

Release Date: 2008
Director: Peter Segal
Starring: Steve Carrell, Dwayne Johnson, Anne Hathaway
Tagline: "Saving The World. And Loving It."
Random Trivia: Get Smart aired on all four major networks - ABC, NBC, CBS, and FOX - during the course of its original run, re-union movie (Get Smart Again), and 1995 continuation with Andy Dick added to the cast.


Disclaimer: I was lightly baked - no pun intended - for this flick. Perhaps, as a result, it impacted my enjoyment of the film, but I highly doubt it.

I should also mention that, by way of re-runs, I was a huge fan of this show as a kid. Phones in shoes. Phone booths that were secret entrances to underground lairs with one security door after another. The deadpan delivery of Don Adams. Maybe I was a really dry kid, but I loved it.



Thus, I went into this interested, yet scared. I fully suspected that this would be another Inspector Gadget, with hints of Austin Powers for good measure. Not in a good way, either. Sadly, I was right.

To keep things simple:

Get Smart is a movie neither smart nor funny. If that's all you need to know, you can pretty much skip the rest of this review. Otherwise, carry on.

Steve Carrell plays the role originated in the TV series (and carried on in the short-lived 1995 resurrection of the same name) by Don Adams, Agent 86, Maxwell Smart. Smart, in the series, was a lovable, bumbling buffoon, the kind you laughed at and cheered for at the same time. Serving for the super-secret spy agency Control, his job was to stave off the aptly named Kaos from achieving world domination, or something like that. At least, as a terrorist group, they had a decent name. Adams was perfect in the role, probably too perfect for Carrell's sake; no matter what he put into the performance, he was not going to top the original. That said, Carrell plays him as... Steve Carrell. I'm no Office fan, but I've seen enough of the show to know that The Office (U.S. Edition) is funny not just because of Carrell, but because it's an ensemble show. It's got a solid supporting cast, talented writers, and gags that work. With Get Smart, the ensemble is there, but the writing, sadly, is not, and most of the gags fall flat.



I liked Carrell enough in Bruce Almighty, but skipped Evan Almighty completely - bad word of mouth and all. I enjoyed his voice work as Horton in Horton Hears a Who quite a bit however. I'm certainly open to him as a leading man, and I suppose Mathew Broderick had already played Inspector Gadget, thus casting him in Get Smart would have been a bit of a retread. Carrell, however, just doesn't work. He's a one-trick pony here; completely flat. Adams was straight but never flat.

The supporting cast, as mentioned, is pretty stellar - Anne Hathaway as Agent 99, who most of us would like to see cast in a 69, plays a much sexier version than the Barbara Feldon original. That's about all I say can about her; I'm still getting over the "loves anal sex" rumor that turned out to be bogus. Ok, ok, in all seriousness, she does a fine job, and I'm still hopeful that she takes it in the ass.



Dwayne "When Will They Stop Calling Me The Rock" Johnson is Agent 23, Control's premier field agent, the big jock of the spy industry. The Rock always had charisma, and a ridiculous finishing move. He also has a pretty good sense of comedic timing, and I'll give him this - his man kiss with Carrell near the climax of the movie should probably have won the MTV movie awards Best Kiss category. Fuck you, Briana Evigan and Robert Hoffman. Alright so I have no idea who those people actually are. But I'll give this one to the Rock simply for having to lock lips with a guy as nerdy and unappealing as Steve Carrell. I suspect that experience alone would be enough for a gay guy to switch teams.

Beyond this trio, the cast actually gets better: Alan Arkin is the chief. James Caan is the President of the United States. Terry Crews (soon to be seen in the most insanely cast movie ever, The Expendables) plays another control agent, Agent 91. Terence Stamp is Kaos mastermind Siegfried (no Roy jokes to be found). Patrick Warburton (The Tick!) shows up. Masa Oki, of Heros fame, is a tech geek - I'll review the spin-off movie of his character, Bruce, later. And Bill Fucking Murray! is an agent stuck in a tree.

You heard me right. Bill Murray is stuck in a tree. This, actually, is the highlight of the film. I literally laughed enough at the concept alone that I missed half his lines the first time around. If someone had shown me a clip of this, either baked or stone cold sober, I would have assumed this was the best movie ever. Seriously. It bears repeating. Bill Murray is stuck in a tree!



This is also the downfall of the movie. The best segment of the entire film is a two minute clip of someone, not the lead, who is actually funny, placed in a situation that is actually funny. It's one of the few gags that works.

My high had already begun to wear off by the time I saw Carrell as Smart exit a plane with no parachute, to later be saved by Agent 99. I kept looking for Doctor Claw to appear, then remembered that this is Get Smart, not Inspector Gadget. I also kept my eyes peeled for Austin Powers, but he didn't show either.

What the fuck? Come back, Bill Murray!

It just keeps going downhill. Get Smart goes for the Big Twist, but there are no real twists in this movie. The "shocking revelation" - betrayal within Control - is pretty obvious from the start. That Smart will save the day is a no-brainer. As is the movie itself. All the good casting went down the tubes with a shabby script cashing in on the sudden popularity of Carrell. Oh, and for trivia buffs, The Rock is not the only wrestler in the movie. There's also Dalip Singh - The Great Khali - a 7'2 380lb giant who, while you can barely understand him, probably got more laughs out of me than anyone other than Bill Murrary and, actually, Masi Oki. Which is why I'm going to give his Bruce and Lloyd: Out of Control spin-off a shot.



So I'll say it again: Get Smart is a movie neither smart nor funny. If you want to laugh at something, rent Zack and Miri Make a Porno, the original Austin Powers, watch old home movies of your family, or hell, dust off the tapes or find a re-run of the original Get Smart series.

Overall rating: Buzzed (1 out of 5)

Guest Review: The House Bunny (2008)

Release Date: 2008
Director: Fred Wolf
Starring: Anna Faris, Emma Stone, Colin Hanks
Tagline: "They wanted a role model. They got a Playmate."
Random Trivia: Fred Wolf's only other directorial effort was Strange Wilderness, also released in 2008. My couch is comfy. Happiness is a Bong You Can Catch.

The House Bunny.

Lets be honest - this was not my selection. In fact, I doubt it's any guy's selection. Face it - if you want porn, you go on the net. Wank to that. Lame comedies with chicks in skimpy outfits (or lame dramas with chicks in skimpy outfits) are normally best-suited as straight-to-DVD fare appealing only to complete movie geeks and hornball thirteen-year-old boys.

So of course, this came by way of the ex-GF, technically her 15 year old sister - who, I should add, has given it a thumbs up. Was she right?We shall see.

Before taking even a single puff, or watching a single frame, I had the following condition: There had better be tits. Hot chicks, and tits. EPIC tits. The kind of tits you write home to mom about.

Wait. Back that up.

EPIC. TITS.

And for the first half, the movie delivered. No nudity, sure - and I bet half of you just stopped reading - but cleavage galore. Opening credits - hey, it's Happy Madison. At this point, I'm feeling a bit more happy myself. Could this actually be decent? Maybe not good, but decent?

As a bonus, I do like Anna Faris, a.k.a the chick from Scary Movie who took the mother of all cum shots.



Random character thoughts: She reads? Really? Well whatever. There was apparently some sort of character development at this point, but I was otherwise occupied, only to be dragged out of my happy stupor by the on-screen bartender's "special twist" that he claims to have added to the drinks. Ugh. There's some innuendo there I don't even want to consider.

My notes, at this point, are getting wavy. Apparently, I'm enjoying the booty shaking on screen, as my last comment states "Booty shaking- I like it already." For all my bitching about tits, I'm actually more into the A part of T&A.

At some point, the plot has regressed - erm, progressed, sorry - and our bouncy playboy bunny protagonist has been booted from the Playboy Mansion, and tens of readers out there are cursing the tongue twister I've just created. Seems the other girls don't want her to be Miss November. Who cares, you can all be Miss November. Oh, right, it's Playboy - so softcore I've been reading it since fifth grade and even then it was weak.

Dumped from the flashy digs, our Bunny - her name is Shelley, but I'll just call her Anna Faris, or our Bunny - hits the road, and stumbles upon a sorority house - apparently staffed/mentored by stuffy old broads who haven't had their gears greased in decades, and populated by your typical snooty sorority bitches. There must have been a type-casting call. Where the hell are the orgies and underaged drinking?!? This has got to be the lamest "hot sorority house" ever!



Too dumb and not bitchy enough to fit in with the rich crowd, the newly homeless Faris heads to the lamest sorority ever - Zeta house -missing the Z&E from its sign, giving us an almost laughable (thanks to me being baked at this point) "at least you still have T&A" line.Except they don't. Other than the obviously hittable, hot chick in ugly girl clothes and glasses lead sorority girl (Emma Stone from Superbad), there's not a looker in the bunch. You've got the stereotypical goth - holy shit it's Edward Furlong! Fuck, dude, Robert Patrick's been looking for your ass... and something that, at this point, is either a dude in drag or a very ugly girl - I'm really not sure. Plus some chick in a body brace, and random other characters...I think one qualifies as a midget. I'm going to lay it all out at this point. I'd fuck a midget. If you're offended by this, please exit to the upper right.



Plot at this point: save the sorority house by getting 30 new members.Playboy chick is going to be the house mother, and incest never sounded so good.

We move into the usual crap - they hold a car wash to raise money, and Emma Stone, instead of going all wet t-shirt for us, goes wet pants,and looks like something I have hidden away on my hard drive somewhere. Next up - Faris must polish the turds and teach them to behot. My initial exuberance at the hot opening has at this point wilted into a growing acceptance that, while the Faris character is actually a pretty decent satire on vapid blond stereotypes - by being an over-the-top vapid blond stereotype - this movie will suck hard in the second half. Pun fully intended, just not in a good way. How does someone with no car hold a car wash? Wait...they wash the cars. Riiigght. I may be higher than I thought.



Some secondary storyline about Faris hooking up with a random dweeb is boring the shit out of me. I guess it's supposed to add "layers" to the movie. Add layers? I want them off!!!

God that ugly chick... I can't get over.. .it's a MAN BABY! Kill it with fire!

At this point I'm going back into a stupor, but a less happy one.

Random thoughts:

I hate Karaoke.

Nipples of the face. "The eyes are the nipples of the face." This is an actual line from the movie. My actual thought that very moment -I'm supposed to look at the bitch's face???

Lets sum up the rest of the movie, shall we?

a) My dinner of Arby's was yummy, and two sandwiches for 5$ is awesome.

b) Dressing obviously cute girls up in ugly clothes and giving them glasses does not make them less cute.

c) Dressing a man up in girls clothes DOES make he/it/her hideously ugly and I still want to KILL IT WITH FIRE (or, as the girl next to me said - "thin the herd - kill the weak/ugly one of the pack." Although it looks like she could clobber me).

d) After the magic "ugly to hot" conversion, you know all will turnout well, and some moral message about always being yourself will play out.



Look, I'll level with you. At this point in the movie, I don't even care. She gets the guy they keep their sorority blah blah. If you rent this, watch the first half, then turn it off, doze off, or, in the likely case that you're with the girl who forced you to get this, just smile, pretend to watching, and hope you get head later.

Overall Rating: 1/4 Baked (2 out of 5)

Guest Review: Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)

Release Date: 1991
Director: James Cameron
Starring: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton, Edward Furlong, Robert Patrick
Tagline: "This time there are two."
Random Trivia: Edward Furlong went through puberty during the shoot. Seriously. His voice changed, and most of his lines had to be re-dubbed after filming was complete. Way to age kid. Hollywood - where 6 is the new 10.

Dadum dum dadum... Dadum dum dadum... Dadum- oh shit, I did that last time didn't I...

Lightly Baked back with my review of the second in the Terminator franchise, and third overall for the site, if my review of The House Bunny ever sees the light of day (that's right, I watched The House Bunny, big whoop, wanna fight about it?).

I gave T1 a solid 5 out of 5, so what does that mean for Terminator 2: Judgment Day? Are we adding a Twice Baked rating to the scale?

I'll put a disclaimer on this puppy: I love both these films, for different reasons. I'm not one of those reviewers who gets a happy hard-on for every movie they watch. I prefer an ending the makes me think next to nice big juicy explosions. Not that I mind big, juicy explosions... Damn, this is getting a bit suggestive. Anyhow, The Terminator, 1984 edition, was an awesome 80s "unstoppable killing machine" movie. It was simple: What the fuck do you do when a guy who just won't fucking die comes after you. Where do you run? Who believes you? Who helps you? How do you fight back?

Terminator 2 is a very different creature once you get past the unstoppable dude - this time Robert Patrick as a liquid metal shape-shifting terminator - angle. It tries to take the film up a notch to the "epic" level, with varying degrees of success (epic is fucking cliche, but forgive me - if there is any installment in the series thus far where this applies, it's T2). It's one of the rare sequels that a lot of people will argue was superior to the original. Yes, it has those big explosions, and was the summer blockbuster event flick of '91, but it has a story, a message, and a tagline far better than the one I tossed in for the intro of this review: There is no fate but what we make for ourselves.

Or, more simply: No Fate.

It's a coming of age tale, a movie about friendship, family, and inevitable fate, and of cheating just that.

And it's got killer fucking robots.

So enough with this serious shit.

A little back story: Writing this review, I'm watching the Extreme Edition DVD (theatrical cut) with the ex again, but in reality - historically at least - I'm watching this in Ontario, Canada, in the summer of 1991. My best friend and I have been fucking stoked to see this puppy since we heard about it. I've got every inch of the trailer with Arnie coming down the assembly line committed to memory, never mind that the scene never appears in the movie. I'm a huge Guns N' Fuckin' Roses fan, and You Could Be Mine is one of the best soundtrack songs ever, with an awesome use of clips in the video to boot.

Opening day, we convince my buddy's dad to drive us to the theatre and foot the bill. He has no interest in the film because, well, he's not much of a movie buff, and if he was, he'd be into serious drama and arthouse films. But he's cool enough to take us to the show and drop us off. He even gives us cash for snacks.

And then the big FUCK YOU from some 20-something who's only joy in life is wiping the smile off children's faces: The movie is 14A. We're 13. NO ENTRY.

14A is a Canadian invention. It means if you're not 14, you need an adult with you. Sure, my buddy's dad is our guardian, and he bought us the tickets - but senor Douchebag insists that he buy a ticket as well, and babysit us for the entire movie. Which he has no desire to do.

You schmuck. Do you not remember being 13? You're not going to get arrested for letting us in, and you're not getting promoted for selling an extra ticket. I hope, sincerely, that you wound up with a horrible case of crabs later in life.

The movie hasn't even started yet and I'm already wishing someone dead.

Luckily, pop's cool enough to buy a ticket, sit through the previews, and leave after five minutes. So a HUGE thanks to my buddy's dad, over a decade late.

Back to the present.

My meal tonight is pasta with garlic toast. Milk. mmmm... something *cough cough* sorry, weed cough - is kicking in.

Now on with the show!

"This time there are two" means, of course, we've got an extra terminator. With Arnie playing good guy this time out, reprogrammed to protect juvie John Conner, it leaves Robert Patrick as the badass. As the story goes, he modeled his performance on Eagles/birds of prey. You can see it. I didn't appreciate the guy in anything else til his underrated performance on The X-Files years later (yeah, I'll go there - he was probably the only one trying in the last few seasons, so good on him). Regardless of his body of work, though, he OWNS this role. You buy that his T-1000 is way more deadly than the walking hunk of metal that is the T-800, and not just because of the cool liquid metal effects from ILM.

The character intros: near perfection. We get a cool bar scene (naked Arnie at Lady's Night) that sets up Arnie as the anti-hero with a bit of comedic timing. Patrick's T-1000 comes off as brutal. And Sarah Conner - we'll get to her in a bit.

But first - here's our future hero, John Connor - who is apparently a punk kid in this. His step parents are... actually, normal parents. Of course John thinks they're dicks, but seriously kid, Todd doesn't seem so bad. You could have wound up with some creepy old perv, so take what you can get. I suppose this is meant to make us see his rebellious side. Great. He's a rebel punk twerp. Because there's nothing you want to see more in the future defender of the human race than a hot-headed streak and some attitude.

This is one of the rare flaws I've found with characters in the flick. Most of them are spot on. Even the supporting cast. And to be fair, I like Edward Furlong's portrayl in the long run. It's not easy to work with kids in film; most of the time they come off as awkward, goofy, or trying too hard. Furlong is relatively natural. But our introduction to John is the only one that seems weak, after a string of awesome intros. We should have started off with him lifting cash from the ATM. Instead, we get a brat.

Speaking of lifting cash from an ATM (worst. segueway. ever.): John, it seems, has learned a few things from mom, including that you can brute force ATM's with a portable video game machine. Who knew?

Back to the character intros. I said they were awesome, nay? I said the only one I found a flaw with was Furlong's. Well, best for last (in this review; I'm not sure I have the order right chronologically). Is there anything more awesome - and I promise, this is the last fucking time I'll use that word - than watching Linda Hamilton do chin-ups behind bars? And, well, hot? Now Sarah - when we left her, Sarah Connor had been a trapped cat. Frightened, forced to fight back, and, at the very end of the first film, finally free and setting out on the road to... somewhere.

In the years between the films, Sarah has hardened. She's a survivor. She's battle ready. And, since she decided to get herself busted and blab about her visions of the future, she's institutionalized.

Way to let your gums flap.

In the end, though, she's badass. For reference, see Ripley, Ellen. Oddly enough, from another James Cameron movie. I'm seeing a trend... and your sarcasm meter just exploded.



The insane asylum setting also gives Cameron and co. the excuse to bring back Dr. Silverman - to much better effect here (and not nearly so contrived as in the third movie).

At this point, my notes are beginning to fail me. Here's what I have left:

We see the locked-down world that is Sarah's life. We see her struggling to keep up appearances, in the hope that, if she's deemed cured, she might see her son. We meet those around her, including one hell of a creepy perv of a guard, to which I wrote: Creepy guy is creepy. Him licking Sarah's face is even creepier. But as mentioned, she is kinda hot... prison sex, anyone? Ahh well. To think, today, this movie would be PG-13.

Woah, cat. At some point, there was a cat.

As Silverman begins playing Sarah videotapes of their past sessions, I can't help but think "Hello, Sarah. I want to play a game..."

My mind is a series of one-liners and movie taglines.

One of these things is not like the other, one of these things is not the same. We're at the arcade. John and his pal are pumping in quarters, and there's... girl gamers? In 1991? I think not. Those, my friends, are a modern invention, and the result of a gender-friendly casting director.

Pictured below is a clip from one of the most epic sequences in action/killer robot movie history. And of course, roses are much more effective than a geranium.



I realized something partway through the flick - there's some serious latent robot homosexuality going on here. It's Hobbit-like.

Ok, not really. And I'll defend Sam til my dying day!

Once Sarah is reunited with John, this becomes a buddy movie between a boy and his Terminator. A mother/son bonding movie between Sarah and John. And a race to destroy the company behind Skynet, Cyberdyne Systems.

We get the big reveal:

"Who sent you?"
"You did."

John sent the Terminator back. This is where the whole time travel thing starts to fuck with things. Would knowing the future not change your reaction to it?

There is no fate but what we make for ourselves.

This is an awesome idea. In the context of the movie, it plays out perfectly, but good luck escaping from that fact that in preventing the future - i.e. putting off Judgment Day - John Connor is essentially wiping himself out of existence. If there is no Judgment Day, and if Skynet is destroyed, there are no Terminators sent back in time, thus Kyle Reese is never sent back in time (see T1), and hence, John no longer exists - nor does this movie.

On the other hand - the movie fucking rocks. So we'll overlook such things as logic. And give you this:

We, as the audience, should have known that the second John did not cease to exist, after the destruction of Cyberdyne Systems and the Terminators, that John and his mother had failed. Judgment Day was still nigh.



Fate, therefore, is inevitable. Or so it would seem.

My notes are no longer just failing me, they're outright gibberish.

There's some sort of reference to Pedobear. And apparently, I greatly enjoyed the chase scene on the freeway, the skewering of a guard by Robert Patrick's T-1000, and helmet hair on some hospital orderly.

This makes it three for three on reviews that go unfinished for me!

To sum it up: If you haven't seen this film, you should. Not least of all because T4 is due any day now, and it would help to know what the fuck is going on. It's on any action movie fan's list of must-watches. The liquid metal T-1000 was a turning point in special effects. The action is top-notch and, a few plot holes aside, the script is solid.

Scale, theme, everything is bigger. While I love the first film for being somewhat colder, and find T2 a bit too sentimental in the end, it still kicks major ass.

Lets just hope the future war in Salvation turns out half as good.

Overall rating: Fully Baked (5 out of 5) - I promise not to do this often.

Multi Micro Reviews - Video Games

Hey everyone, first up...don't worry about the Terminator reviews as they are forthcoming.

In the meantime, we have myself writing a few mini-reviews of some video games.

Lets just jump on in.

Terminator: Salvation -
Platforms: Xbox 360, PC, PS3
Genre: Third Person Shooter

So Terminator Salvation the movie just came out and of course with all the buzz behind it they had to make a video game to boot. If you have even seen the previews of the new movie your first response after booting this up will be "Who the fuck am I and where is John Connor (Christian Bale)?" Yes, the first moment you start playing your helicopter gets shot down and someone yells something to Connor (who's the one falling out of the heli). At this point you see John Connor for the first time and just...wow....it looks bad...The games graphics are not worthy of a next-gen price tag. Or maybe if the game play is amazing then the graphics can be passable. Lets talk about the poor game play now, which has stiff controls and I had to adjust the sensitivity quite a bit before I could even play it properly. The game will get repetitive very quickly with the same mission after mission. You run into a room, some terminators or other robots come after you, kill them and move on to next room. The developers did break it up a tiny bit by throwing in missions where you man a turret on the back of a slow moving truck. With the stiff controls all this does is annoy as you try and aim at the flying robots attacking you.

Bottom Line: If you are a huge terminator fan give it a rental, but be prepared to repeat the same actions over and over with a fake John Connor who's shotgun is very accurate even from far away. If you are not a HUGE terminator fan then pass this one by, unless you are a achievement whore in which case a runthrough the game on the hardest difficulty will net you the full 1000, and even on easy you would get all but two achievements.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine (Uncaged Edition) -
Platforms: Xbox360, PC, PS3 (caged edition avail on Wii, PS2, PSP, DS)
Genre: Third Person Brawler (essentially ya that sounds right)

Another game based on a movie, and this movie was not any better than Terminator Salvation is. But does the game based off the movie barely make a scratch or does it claw the shit out of my senses? Lets talk about it. First off the game has the likeness of the characters from the movie (with a few minor exceptions) and pulls it all of beautifully. The voice-acting delivered by Hugh Jackman is great and sounded like he had some fun with it. The plot follows the origins story a little more faithfully and obviously more in depth than the movie. People playing the game will still end up getting the same story from the movie and actually the version they see is more complete! The Graphics are beautiful and personally it's fun as hell to see wolverine rip some guys arms off, or cut a guy in two, the amount of violence is actually a nice change from the movie which pandered to the Teen audience. Wolverine also takes real-time damage! Get a grenade in the chest, and yea...you can see through your damn body and you even get to see it regenerate. This is the way a movie game should be, wicked fun to just pickup and play.

Bottom Line: This is a great game, the graphics are good, voice acting good, plot is decent and it's easy to pick up and just play. The only downside is it gets repetitive fairly quick, and unless you feel like playing thru the game with other costumes or unlock bonus features then no reason to play through a second time. It can also be beaten in about 5- 10 hours so it's not the longest game either. GREAT FOR A STONER!!! ***HIGHLY RECOMMENDED***

X-Blades -
Platforms: PC, Xbox 360, PS3
Genre: Third Person Spectacle Fighter

I have to call X-Blades a Spectacle Fighter because it is like the Devil May Cry Series, you get in a battle that's just more or less really flashy and usually easy to fight off and perform crazy special moves that stun everyone viewing the screen. ANYWAY - this is the closest I could figure this game as it starts out with the oddest cut-scene in a shop in which you connect to tetris pieces together and then monsters come, your incredibly naked main character fights them off and then explains she's basically a tomb raider. Follow so far? good. At this point you are let loose in a temple and are headed to get some stupid rare jewel thing, as you run along suddenly lizard things start attacking you and tutorial time. But all it says is - Press X to attack. So you only have one melee attack which is X, after a while you find out you have guns too. Which can be used with the right trigger and now I feel like I'm playing Devil May Cry but with a hot very naked chick as the main character as shit is dying all over the place and I'm bouncing around shooting and attacking. The game itself is totally insane as you continue you run into a werewolf which takes like a hour to defeat but never really hurts you so it's just like hacking away at a tree with a axe. This is getting long, so lets skip to bottom line already.

Bottom Line: It's a extremely budget Devil May Cry, complete with ridiculous amounts of upgrades you can do to everything. This does feature a nearly naked chick bouncin around thou, and it can be fun at times. I would still recommend Devil May Cry 4 over this.

Dark Sector -
Platforms: PC, Xbox 360, PS3
Genre: Third Person Shooter/Action

Ok has anyone out there played Gears of War? Yes? Well then don't bother with this game, it's not that good. The game starts of decently enough with you infiltrating a base and more or less just killing a ton of guards who don't know how to actually hide behind cover as they will attempt to hide but manage to end up hiding while somehow still totally in view of me and my bullets. The AI is something to usually challenge the player, althou the only challnge here is do I use my pistol or my machine gun to kill the stupid guy standing there looking at me as if I can't see him. The only challenge I got during the first level (Prologe) was during the final battle between you and a helicopter which was only hard because other eniemies that were on the other side of the map would suddenly appear practically beside me and nearly kill me every so often. It was quite the confusing sight to see as a eneimy across the screen would suddenly dissapear infront of me and then suddenly end up beside me. Crazy. Well the controls arn't the best either and seem stiff at times I use the phrase at times because it was completly random.

Bottom Line: The game is certainly interesting enough if you could get into the plot. It unfortunatly suffers from glitches and stiff controls and AI that is non-exisitant at times. If you had to ask me for a recommendation then I'd say don't bother.


Wanted: Weapons Of Fate -
Platforms: PC, PS3, Xbox 360
Genre: Third Person Shooter

Another movie and yet another game. The movie I found to be actually enjoyable and fun, at least up until there was a loom telling people who to kill, then I was annoyed. The game follows the same story from the movie essentially, but more the comic timeline and stories. So lets just say it involves an annoying voice Wesley (It's not the dude from the movie and the voice actor gets annoying FAST) and he goes around shooting tons of armed guys in his way. I will have to say, once you learn all the cool tricks like curving bullets and moving super crazy fast etc... then the game is really quite fun for a while. The developers actually manage to make things enjoyable to the point you are curving nearly every shot just to see if it will choose this shot as the one that uses the slow-everything-down-and-follow-the-bullet-to-it's-target camera which is a treat to view when stoned at least. Even with the fun of basically being a super-powered crazy agent the game as with most games gets repetative and seems drawn out as every few eneimes taken out equals a pointless cut-scene that usually just shows Wesley walking to the next room. Another game that attempts to break up the reperative sequences with a very sudden turret scene early on without any warning either, you basically turn a corner and are suddenly in this turrent and are expected to shoot all the bad dudes. Crazy shit.

Bottom Line: The game is actually fairly playable and with the exception of a few minor glitches and annoying choices with some repetative gameplay, it's actually a fun game that I would at least warrent with a rental. I like curving bullets for no reason, like around a pole even though I have a nice clear shot.

- That's it from HalfBaked for now, I might be back later with another review...but I dunno yet..

Coming Soon!

Articles currently in the works or already half done.

- Terminator 2: Judgement Day (this will be a guest review as well) (hopefully will have this before Thursday and Terminator Salvation)
- Terminator 3: Rise Of The Machines (I will review this one myself)

I am hoping to make this week Terminator Week, I'll also try to review the new video game and I'll try and end the week off with a review of Terminator Salvation after I see it Thursday night (I won't have notes for that one so it will be a memory based review)

Also -

The House Bunny - Guest Review from Lightly Baked
Phone Booth - Double Review (me and Lightly Baked sat down and watched this one last night, expect either one review with both info, or two separate reviews) - haven't decided yet.

- X-men Origins: Wolverine (The videogame - not the movie)

hmmm, I don't remember if I had other things planned or not.

Oh well!

Enjoy the forth-coming reviews!

Guest Review: The Terminator (1984)

Guest Reviewer - Lightly baked (friend of mine)

Release Date: 1984
Director: James Cameron
Starring: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton, Michael Biehn
Tagline: "Your future is in his hands"
Random Trivia: Watching this film in my living room, high with the now-ex-GF. Terminator-vision shows a dump of the ROM assembly code for the Apple II operating system. You can recreate this if you have one (a Terminator or a AppleII).

Dadum dum dadum... Dadum dum dadum...

That tune has been with me since I was a kid. I have no fucking clue when or where I saw this flick for the first time. Not in theatres, possibly at home with the old man, who puts about as much faith in ratings-based-parenting as I do. This will be my first occasion seeing
it baked, fully or otherwise. It's also my first review for this site, so pat me on my back already!

Diving right in - I don't think I even need to describe story for this puppy. If you haven't seen it, you're not a movie fan. Holy shit! Something has come to me - this is the perfect time travel movie, as the 80s synth version of the theme takes you right back into the decade. Right up there with Back to the Future Part 2, which shows the future as only someone from the 80s could have imagined it. Anyhow - as good as this movie still is, Predator has held up better as far as aging is concerned. But fuck - it still rocks. Now the hair... Big hair. And cheese music. If it weren't for the movies, and a few late-breaking albums at the end of the decade, I've have this entire decade removed from my memory with a rusty ice pick.



Random thought: Sarah Connor's roommate for some reason reminds me of a backup girl from the 20 minute workout. Do you remember that show? Probably not.

Never mind. I dropped my Kraft Dinner in my Samosa. As you can tell, this review and coherency may not go hand in hand. Lets get back on track: Kyle Reese has arrived back in the 80s with the job of protecting Sarah Connor. Arnie is an evil Terminator, a killing
machine sent back in time by Skynet, a self-aware artificial intelligence which has overrun mankind after launching nuclear war. He's to kill Sarah Connor, mother of the future leader of the human resistance, John Connor. Edward Furlong is probably just a couple
years out of the womb, and Robert Patrick's liquid-metal T-1000 probably hasn't even been considered yet. Here we go. Sarah Connors are being picked off out of the phone book, one by one. That's quite ingenious actually, except for the fact that Skynet has developed a way to go back in time and couldn't fucking GOOGLE Sarah Connor's address from the 80s! I thought everything was online. 411 go the way of the dodo after Judgment Day? I guess so...



Ooh... shotgun. Unattended shotgun. Those always come in handy. Good snag Kyle, they obviously had Doom in your future time-line.

So let me get this straight - Kyle goes with the awesome shoulder-sling thingy for the gun... and NIKE FUCKING VELCRO??? Seriously just invent a way to travel through time with clothes, and avoid having to make awkward fashion choices/product placements such as this. Plus, you're less likely to fry your nuts.



The disco scene... is that a disco? Fucked if I know...

As baked as I am, the armor in the future scenes from The Terminator still looks like football pads to me. Kind of like the Road Warrior with some of the Great Humungus' minions (note to self: Review the Road Warrior). Still, the future scenes are awesome. Proof: we're still creaming our pants over a post-Judgment Day sequel in 2009.

The roommate is dead. Am I writing this in order? I remember really wanting that chick dead. I'm sorry Sarah, pick a roommate who is less fucking annoying. Fucking kill her, make it brutal, torture her mmkay thanks? And never, never shack up with anyone like that again. I guess it won't matter, since you wind up in a mental institution somewhere down the line, then dead from cancer in 1997, then on TV played by someone else in the year 1999 but airing a decade later.



Oh and while we're still on the roommate subject (or while I want to dwell on it):

Patty? Selma? Jub-Jub? She has a lizard for fuck's sake! If you have a lizard, you keep it in a tank, you don't let it wander around getting lizard shit everywhere.

Oeros... mmm, Oreos (clear-headed me's editorial note: Looking back at my notes, this is actually spelled Orea. Oreos were placed in front of me at this point. They were good).

Ahh, subtle foreshadowing. Someone is talking to a machine. Just like
later, when-



So apparently, when you cover your ear, the music playing in the background actually drops. Or so this movie would have us believe. This is apparently some sort of nefarious invention by Skynet.

Hello, Silverman. Doctor Silverman. I forgot he was in the first one,
I mostly remember him from T2, and as just about the only returning
actor other than Arnie in the not-as-horrible-as-you-think-it-is-but-still-could-have-been-so-much-more T3.

At this point I put down my notes and jumped back into the movie. Has there even been a coherent, finished review on this site yet? Will there ever be?



To summarize, The Terminator is a simple story of Boy Meets Girl, Girl
Almost Gets Killed by Time Traveling Cyborg, Boy Loves Girl, Boy Gets
Killed By Said Cyborg but not before Knocking Girl Up, Girl somehow
stops literal killing machine that military-badass boy couldn't.

And to top it all off, boy was sent back through time by his own, future, grown son.

Got it?

Good, because this is the easy one. The time-line doesn't really fuck
with your head until the sequels. Come to think of it, you don't even
need to be fully baked to ponder that shit and think "..."

Overall rating: Fully Baked (5 out of 5)

Cost of Living?

Well I regret to say that the blog is essentially dead in the water.

Due to financial reasons I cannot continue to smoke marijuana, so either I have to rely on others to write for me, or I have to write as if I was in that state of mind.

I have a question for anyone who still actually reads this...

Would you like me to write some reviews based on things/reviews I may have been able to do previously?

Meaning - Things I have already played/done/seen while high?

Leave a comment...