Bats

My wife loves these B movies where animals attack people. This movie is perfect for her. I had not planned on watching it and in fact I had work to do but somehow I got caught up and watched the whole thing and it was hysterically bad.

This is a made for TV movie Lou Diamond Phillips. It doesn't seem that long ago where I saw him in the made for TV movie named "The Triangle". I hardly see the guy anymore but I have to give him props ... he's certainly been keeping busy! I like him in the TV show Numb3rs. Actually I like him in everything he's done starting with La Bamba which was awesome.

The plot was predictable. The actors lines were painfully predictable. It's like I was writing the movie with my brain waves ... I would think ahead of time of what they were about to say ... and they'd say it. The writer must have asked himself ... what is the most obvious and cliché thing I can have this character say at this moment?

The scene at the end where they are out-running the bats in the cave reminded me of scenes in movies where people out-run explosions. You would see them run by the camera then the bats would fly by moving at about 5 times their speed. At that rate, the bats would have caught them in a few seconds and yet the scene where they are running from the bats lasts about a minute.

I do have to admit that the CG bats were done fairly well ... most of the time.

I didn't realize this was supposed to be a comedy but at the end of the movie, after they seal the mine with all of the mutant bats, the boss-bat manages to somehow dig its way underground and pop its head out at the very end ... but then his head gets squashed by the car as our heroes are driving away oblivious to the fact that they just saved the world ... again. That really sealed the movie for stupidity. It was trying to be serious up until that point. It's like the movie shifted gears for the final scene. I felt like I was watching a scene from Gremlins 2 (which I saw for the first time recently as well!)

Tornado

This is a made for TV German movie dubbed in English with Chinese and Malaysian sub-titles watched in Malaysia so it had about 5 major scenes cut out of it.

Here is the description on Yahoo movies.

Berlin is struck by an unusual series of storms and hail stones. In the middle of this unusual phenomenon is a meteorologist named John who has recently returned from studying tornadoes in Oklahoma, in the United States. He returns home to find his ex-girlfriend, a doctor named Eva, going out with his best friend, Bruno, also a meteorologist. Bruno has taken his place as his father's assistant. John has a knack for weather prediction and he learns that a tornado is about to hit Berlin.Together with Eva, he must convince his father to sound the warning for the people of Berlin to stay clear of the path of the oncoming tornado.

Kelly fell asleep which is common when there's a lot of talking (she's deaf) and I almost fell asleep since it was really boring at times.

The scenes where people are getting chased by tornadoes are quite ridiculous. The characters in this movie really should go to jail for their negligence of not warning Berlin. They used hail a lot but it was obviously just grinded up ice. I know what hail looks like. It's round but the pieces of hail in this movie were all irregular shapes like a large block of ice had passed thru a grinder.

People started getting up and leaving a few minutes before the movie ended.

And the worst thing was that who ever mixed the sound tracks made the special effects WAY TOO LOUD so I couldn't hear what people were saying.

Kelly usually likes these crappy B movies but even she thought it was boring and stupid.

Sunshine

The closest guy in the poster reminds me of Kevin Rose the creator of Digg fame but only in the poster.

Unfortunately Kelly did not turn off her mobile phone and received an SMS right when the movie started. Her phones beeps REALLY loudly three times ... twice, for each SMS. Then she proceeded to SMS the person back with her bright screen lighting visible to everyone behind her distracting them. As she was finishing her SMS she got ANOTHER SMS.

I was so embarrassed ... I couldn't focus on the movie. I tried holding my hand over the phone to shut it up, muffle the speaker but obviously I failed. I signed to Kelly to please shut her phone off so she did ... unfortunately it plays a REALLY LOUD piece of music while it's shutting down.

So basically she disturbed the theater 4 times with her mobile phone right at the beginning of the movie ... also causing me to miss some key information at the start.

I was embarrassed and pissed and it took me about 5 minutes to relax enough to start enjoying the movie again.

I had no idea what this movie about beyond looking at the poster. I half caught a preview on TV and I read no reviews. I went into it cold but it looked cool. It had a good scifi plot involving space travel and the Sun ... that's enough excuse for me to see it.

Right away I found it interesting although I doubted that the sun would reduce in energy as they say because according to scientists the sun will expand to a red-giant consuming Mercury, Venus and expand to Earth's current orbit but push Earth away boiling off it's water and atmosphere and that will eventually shrink to a white-dwarf. I got this info from Wikipedia.

Given that the sun was actually reducing in energy making Earth a frozen wasteland, I still doubt they would have the technology to restart it or supply enough fuel to make it brighter. And even if it worked, maybe they'd make it too hot and the Earth would suffer from too much heat.

This is supposed to be 50 years in the future so 2057 but the technology shown, as usual, was far too ambitious for 50 years from now. Maybe more like 250 years from now! Scifi is typically too optimistic so when we finally do reach the year in that movie or book, it's never anywhere near as sophisticated as depicted.

The movie 2001:A Space Odyssey predicted we would have a massive orbiting space station and a permanently manned moon-base by 2001 and that PanAm would evolve into a space agency. Well, they actually got that sort of right. Virgin has expanded into a space agency but then again, they've expanded into almost everything including books, comic books, health spas, credit cards, insurance, loans, digital tv, mobile phones, health clubs, stem cells, wedding venues, music festivals, games and gambling, cosmetic and jewelry, wine, music downloads, movies, games and so much more. Visit their home page to check it out.

The ship was named Icarus 2 which was version 2 of Icarus which was the first attempt but they lost contact. Apparently the second attempt is the last attempt because there is not enough material to make a third bomb so it's do or die.

Icarus is from Greek Mythology about a man who flew too close to the sun using artificial wings held together with wax. The wax melted and he fell to his death.

The ship has this giant mirror on the front to reflect the solar energy. I'd sure like to know how that works or if that is even possible. The sun is still going to heat up the shield.

Speaking of 2001:A Space Odyssey again, they copied yet another scene where two people have to spend a little time in space without a space suit. Space Odyssey has come the closest to depicting what actually happens when people are subjected to the vacuum of space but once again Hollywood feels like they have to exaggerate. The problem they emphasized most in the movie was the extreme cold. They did say to close your eyes and breath out slowly. Closing your eyes is a good idea but exhaling all the way is a better idea. Freezing to death is not a big problem and yet the guy who didn't make it gets frozen solid in about 30 seconds then hits something and shatters into tiny pieces then gets vaporized by the sun. Dust to Dust.

On their journey to the Sun they discover that the first Icarus ship has survived. It has been 7 years and they don't have enough oxygen unless much of the crew died. They decide to rendezvous with the first ship because two bombs are better than one. Course correction goes fine but human errors causes other problems.

The thing I liked most about the movie was the problem solving. The solution was always that someone had to die. Time and time again the crew found themselves in a situation where they were expendable. Kill one person and you save the human race. Luckily they didn't have to draw straws since the crew got picked off one by one by various events. This plot idea that someone must die to save millions was explored in an episode of Outer Limits when a girl hides aboard a rocket carrying medicine to a dying planet. Because of her added weight, they don't have enough fuel to slow down.

What I'm saying is that there is not much original in this film. It's ideas are borrowed from many other SciFi films. It even made me think about the really bad movie Solarbabies.

When they visited the original Icarus it reminded me of two movies: Event Horizon and 2010, the sequel to 2001 A Space Odyssey. In both of those movies they visit a ship which has been long lost but they seemed to mimic the horrors they found in Event Horizon. Apparently living that close the Sun for 7 years and surviving changed the Captain in some way. He's running around naked and his skin is all fried but he seems to be emitting some kind of radiation that prevents you from seeing him clearly. He's also insane ... or is he. Apparently he spoke to God who told him to take everyone to Heaven which meant stopping the mission.

The final 10 minutes of the movie are really cool but I won't ruin it for you. I've provided too many spoilers as it is. I liked the special effects and costumes.

If your wife is deaf, avoid inviting her to this. My wife fell asleep about 5 times. Some movies are just boring to the deaf ... too much talking, not enough action.

The Reaping

I don't want to waste my time reviewing this movie. There is very little originality. She has sex with the cult member and doesn't remember and is not bearing the anti-christ. Hmmm ... sounds familiar ... Rosemary's Baby.

I've been a huge Hillary Swank fan since she did Boy's Don't Cry but there were times in this movie when she was slurring her words as if she was recovering from a stroke. At other times she spoke fine.

I thought the CGI locust were pretty cool. I'd like to know how they made a river turn red. Was that some kind of filter or did they actually die the river red?

The only reason I went to see this movie is because Kelly wanted to see it. I think her favorite genre is movies where people are attacked by nature in some way whether it be animals, earthquakes, tornadoes, etc. This also had a biblical theme so that was interesting for her as well but boring for me.

The movie was OK. I thought the special effects were good. I hate the false scares though. Kelly was obviously more scared then me but I was honestly scared at some points. I would have preferred to see Sunshine but sometimes you have to see movies because your significant other wants to see them.

The Beach

Reality vs Hollywood

I just got back from Phuket Thailand, one of the many shooting location for the movie The Beach. We took a speedboat out to Phi Phi island which is the main shooting location and went to the actual beach but it was low tide and our boat could not reach the shore because of the coral. I tried to swim to the beach but it got too shallow and too dangerous. The coral is like sharp rocks. It can easily shred your skin as I discovered first hand.

I saw this movie at a time when I was looking for adventure so it inspired me. It also instilled me with the desire to visit Thailand. So far I visited Bangkok, Koh Samui island, Phuket island, Phi Phi island and Hatyai. There's a magic that Thailand has that Malaysia seems to lack.

I wanted to discuss the difference between the movie and reality for example at the end where he logs into Excite.com to check his email. His username is Richard. The chances of getting your own name for a username on a popular site like Excite is highly unlikely.



The movie does a good job at capturing the magic of Thailand.

These screen captures came off a VCD I bought in Malaysia so they have Chinese and Malay sub-titles.

I screen captured the map shown below from the movie. I pieced together 3 screen captures as they scrolled. Compare this map to the screen capture I took from Google Earth. The map is actually based on reality. There is an island west of Koh Phangan that has an enclosed lagoon or lake.



The fictional island on the map is actually on the other side of Thailand from Phuket and Phi Phi island.

Comparing that island to the island drawn on the map, my best guess is the fictional island is this one in that collection of island on the left.


























When I zoomed in closer to the cluster of islands I found an island with a lake resembling the enclosed lagoon in the movie.



















Here is a screen capture of the CGI island from the movie.










In reality this is island they filmed on. It's called Phi Phi island and its 45 minutes by speedboat from Phuket island and it is on the opposite side of Thailand off the west coast. The aqua colored area around the island is the coral.
















Below is the scene where they are about to swim to the island giving you another view of it. That could be Phi Phi island. I'm not sure. Most of the island is surrounded by steep cliffs. In fact they are inverted where the water has carved them out so you would have to climb up and slightly up-side down. From this point of view it appears they are swimming toward an area with no beach.







Here is in another view of the island in the movie. They mention that the island is a national park which is why their boat could not take them there. The island on the map is actually a national park so that part is correct.







Here is a shot of the island from the end of the movie.












In the movie they give the impression that the lagoon is closed on all sides and they do a pan which gives the impression it is. Below I used AutoStitch to stitch together 3 screen captures from the movie as they panned left to right showing the entire lagoon.

But if you look on the left you can see the cliff edge which leads to the exit of the lagoon. This is just a clever camera angle giving you the impression it is a closed lagoon.




Here is a scene from the movie where they are entering Maya bay.









Look again on this map. You see those two bays that almost meet? Just above that is Maya Bay where this lagoon exists.

















Here is the picture I took of the beach from the boat. Compare that to the scene from the movie below.

































Our guide told me that there are no sharks in that area so the movie lied about that.

This screen shot from the movie shows that there is less coral on the right side. Too bad I swam in from the left side. I probably would have hit sand before it got too shallow and have been able to walk in.







Here is another shot from the movie that shows the first 50 feet are sand.










In one scene they are kissing underwater but in order to reach the deep water you have to pass about 50 feet of shallow coral and that would be pretty impossible at night so that scene is fake.












In this scene they are hiding in the field of marajuana. There is no place on Phi Phi that this field could exist.

They also made the trip to the island for 400 Bahts. I'm assuming that was per person because 400 Bahts is about 1 US dollar. Things may be cheap in Thailand but I seriously doubt they made such a long trip by train, bus and boat for only $1.






Is Maya Bay that beautiful? Yes! That part is true. The water is crystal clear with beautiful fish swimming around and all kinds of amazing things to see.



If you want to read about my trip to Phuket check out this link.