My Hate Affair with Excessive Sequels

Most normal stories follow the traditional pattern of a beginning middle and end. There are some that constitute sequels that continue a story about fairly interesting characters. Really its not sequels that are the problem, there have been several great ones like with Kill Bill or Spiderman. Trilogies even have their place in my movie heart. There is something really interesting about them, I mean if the storylines keep my interest kudos to the production team. I love the From Dusk til Dawn trilogy and the Indianna Jones one as well.
The problem is rooted in greed, a once hit movie being overplayed for the sake of gold at the box office. It's the ever not classy fourth installments of movies! However I am not saying all are absolutely terrible because in pop culture that can not be said for anything. Call it a golden rule! I did happen to like the fourth Die Hard film, based on the fact that Bruce Willis still has the tough funny edges. Shrek does not. As a matter of fact that was my inspiration for this post. I remain a firm believer that the third shrek was a yuk-fest, which bored me to tears. While I also read up on upcoming movies, my advice to Sam Raimi or whoever may be directing the spiderman 4 movie, should drop the project and make something else.
Pretty much the only movies that should go above three films are movies based on books, like Harry Potter. The Goblet of Fire (the fourth installment) remains one of my favorites. Though a young powerful wizzard IS NOT a big green ogre. Someone tell Mike Meyers that while the paycheck may be extremely sweet (over 100,000$ a minute!?) the lack of storyline may produce the worst grossing shrek film yet. Do they have no dignity? This is what i wonder. The big green ogre hasnt been funny since the first and second movie.
Do not even get me started on the utter fail of a movie indianna jones four. Sure Bruce Willis was a tad old in the fourth die hard but it was nothing compared to Harrison Ford. That man (60 years old) has seen some better times and needs to retire the action routine. The effects were decent until the wtf moments at the ends of the movie. Aliens?! To this day that remains un explainable to me. I just could not comprehend the story line along with the oldness of Harrison Ford. They may be in talks for a fifth......someone shoot me......right now.

Restricting Creativity 3/17/10

It seems like everything in my life right now is screaming at me to finish my homework, and get good grades. What if my ideal career is in film? That has nothing to do with Chemistry, Algebra 2 or Ap European History. Its excessive, I barely have time to write on this blog. I say there should be schools available strictly on a creative basis.

The elusive IB program....its the bane of many of my classmates existance. However they are not taking the right things from it. If academics is what you think I get from this program you would be plainly wrong. My entire film career is hinged on observation, people and their deepest darkest feelings. I appreciate my hobby of people watching. I pride myself in the art of people reading. The IB program is a breeding ground to narcissism, weirdness and opinionated personas. Sometimes I hate it. Other times I use just someones look to delve into them and create a whole made up back story detailing their escapades. Weird? Yeah. I get that a lot. This is the only existing method of sanity keeping I have among the seas of notes and formulas, that I drown in academically.

My advice to up and coming IB freshman, is observe the people around you and determine from them the nature of human condition. I will take more people lessons from Ms. Chen the person than her class Chemistry.

Unshockable 10x14

After a long long break from CSI due to the extremely long Winter Olympics, it was good to be back. Though the Rascal Flatts storyline kind of took to the back burner to the highly confusing CIA case the episode was fairly well planned out.

The Case: While playing their new song, Unstoppable a Rascal Flatts bandmate comes close to death by his guitar. A strong surge of electricity went through his amp to his guitar to his microphone and finally to him. Ultimately he suffered short term neurological damage and had a short hospital stay. It was kind of funny how the effects of a strong shock do to the brain. While lying in bed he claimed to have switched his music tastes to be more of a rap persuasion. For the Rascal Flatts gang it seems like they would have had a fun time filming this, as a fake bruise inducing fight even occured. However later in the episode after many strives by the CSI's to collect evidence they find the primary evidence (Jay's Guitar) in a devote follower of the bands. Upon doing an autoposy of the classic instrument it was discovered exactly how the surge worked out. The explanation itself left me a little dizzzy. While everyone pointed fingers at the other bandmates, it was discovered that the culprit was actually the standing bass tech for Jay who just wanted his moment to shine. Meanwhile the other case took a 007 CIA mystery spin. A dead CIA agent brought CSI's Langston and Sidle under complete chaos. When the head hancho agent got involved everything took a turn for the worst. The CIA confiscated evidence, took pictures of the investigators and just creeped in general. Come to find out what killed the agent was a very top secret biological weapon....Sarin. Which actually induces stage four cancer. As Henry said it was straight out of a bond movie. As the CSI's slowly peiced together small transfer evidence samples more and more of the blame began to fall on the agents estranged son. There were even pictures taken by germans to prove it. However in a big twist, Langston uncovered a big suicide plot. Turns out Head hancho agent had given the dead agent the Sarin because he wanted to die a hero supposedly at the hands of sworn enemies. So much for heroism.

The Characters: Mostly this episode had a spread out array of character quirk, which is exactly the way it should be. Langston apparently knows an inceredible amount of other languages. Chinese from Deep Fried and Minty Fresh and now German breifly in this episode. That requires some extreme brilliance because im struggling just with my spanish classes. Catherine played the role of fierce boss lady and charmer perfectly in one hour. I admire a strong woman who can win over an electrocuted country star and stand up to the head hancho agent on the phone in the next. This was also a good character study episode for Hodges. While talking to Langston about the dead agent found in fishing clothing he began to talk about his father for the first time. Claiming that, his father never took him fishing so he stayed home and baked cookies with his mother and some people wonder why he can be such a suck up? Lack of fatherly love as a kid may have caused that. Nick and Robbins banter about Texas and country in relation to him almost cutting into a classic guitar was perfect. One of the funniest moment of the episode along with the crazy fan and Hodges getting hacked of course. Overall the episode had the clash of funny with serious in a twisting and confusing way. There was a case too many really.

Favorite Parts of the Episode:

Nick and Robbins banter: Haha committing murder to a guitar....classic musical Robbins

Henry Awkward Humor: I love how no one got his reference from bond

Catherine Best of Both Worlds: Sassy one moment and serious the next

Hodges: Him getting hacked and his personal files haha.

Physco fan: Hilarious one of the high points of the episode

Head Hancho Agent: Bad ass and creepy to boot!

Ray speaking German: What is that like four languages!?