Yesterday I went and saw "Crank", which if you don't know is the movie where Jason Statham plays Chev Chelios, a hitman who's been poisoned in his sleep with a mysterious drug that kills him by "blocking the adrenalin receptors". Which is gobbledygook, of course, but it sets up the central premise of the movie, which is that he's constantly got to keep the adrenalin levels high or the drug will kill him. So he drives like a madman, steals great bagfuls of energy drinks, prescription drugs, gets into fights, has public sex with his girlfriend, and so on. There's some really funny scenes, a lot of fun visual tricks, and a storyline with really no brain whatsoever.
Then we snuck into "Snakes on a Plane", 'cause, y'know, snakes on a plane. That was actually surprisingly decent also. Well, okay, it was bad, but it was entertainingly bad. And the snake kill effects are surprisingly gruesome for such a silly movie. My biggest beef came towards the end when, yes, a character must land the plane based only on time on flight sims. Which is a silly, overused plot device yes, but I could kind of vaguely credit it if the character had been playing one of those massively detailed, fanatically accurate flight sims on PC with a proper joystick setup, etc. Would it be very likely to work? No. But there'd be enough familiarity involved that it's theoretically possible. But they spoil it by a complete lack of videogame knowledge. See, he's been playing this "flight sim" on PS2. There aren't any flight sims of any realistic detail on the PS2, and the PS2 controller isn't remotely similar to those of an actual airliner. And he talks about his brother having the high score. And believe you me, there is no "high score" in realistic flight sims. (Is it silly to quibble about this in a movie where a bad guy attempts assassination of a witness by releasing swarms of poisonous snakes on his plane? Sure, but since the snakes-on-the-plane bit is the core of the movie, one must suspend that disbelief simply to watch the movie. Not so with the flight sim business.)
In other news, shortly after I got back from those movies my sneezing started up in earnest and by the time I tried to go to bed I was utterly fried. And then I couldn't get to sleep until something like 6 am. And I needed to be up by 10:10 am. Which is when I woke up, but it should give you some idea of my mental state that I have no idea if my alarm went off or not.
So I called in sick to work and tried to go get some more sleep, but it was not to be. This is going to be *such* a fun day.
Then we snuck into "Snakes on a Plane", 'cause, y'know, snakes on a plane. That was actually surprisingly decent also. Well, okay, it was bad, but it was entertainingly bad. And the snake kill effects are surprisingly gruesome for such a silly movie. My biggest beef came towards the end when, yes, a character must land the plane based only on time on flight sims. Which is a silly, overused plot device yes, but I could kind of vaguely credit it if the character had been playing one of those massively detailed, fanatically accurate flight sims on PC with a proper joystick setup, etc. Would it be very likely to work? No. But there'd be enough familiarity involved that it's theoretically possible. But they spoil it by a complete lack of videogame knowledge. See, he's been playing this "flight sim" on PS2. There aren't any flight sims of any realistic detail on the PS2, and the PS2 controller isn't remotely similar to those of an actual airliner. And he talks about his brother having the high score. And believe you me, there is no "high score" in realistic flight sims. (Is it silly to quibble about this in a movie where a bad guy attempts assassination of a witness by releasing swarms of poisonous snakes on his plane? Sure, but since the snakes-on-the-plane bit is the core of the movie, one must suspend that disbelief simply to watch the movie. Not so with the flight sim business.)
In other news, shortly after I got back from those movies my sneezing started up in earnest and by the time I tried to go to bed I was utterly fried. And then I couldn't get to sleep until something like 6 am. And I needed to be up by 10:10 am. Which is when I woke up, but it should give you some idea of my mental state that I have no idea if my alarm went off or not.
So I called in sick to work and tried to go get some more sleep, but it was not to be. This is going to be *such* a fun day.
Ah, how sad, that i can only make so much money off of them to give to planned parenthood.