“When dealing with aliens, try to be polite, but firm. And always remember that a smile is cheaper than a bullet.”
The Scoop: 2009, R. Directed by Neill Blomkamp and starring Sharlto Copley, Jason Cope, and Nathalie Boltt
Tagline: You are not welcome here
Summary Capsule: (Bleep) phoning home. Christopher Johnson wants to go there.
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“When I shop, the world gets better, and the world is better, but then it’s not, and I need to do it again.”
The Scoop: 2009, PG, directed by P.J. Hogan, and starring Isla Fisher, Hugh Dancy, and Krysten Ritter
Tagline: All she ever wanted was a little credit…
Summary Capsule: Pretty girl shops too much, writes about saving money, and falls in love along the way. Yeah, you men know you want to see this one.
“I’m not a person, I know it. But I feel like one.”
The Scoop: 2009, Directed by Jeffrey Reiner and starring Eric Stoltz, Esai Morales, and Paula Malcomson
Tagline: “The battle for humanity has a beginning.”
Summary Capsule: A teenage girl thinks her father doesn’t know all that much… and boy, in this case she’s right.
“The wise and powerful Jabba has one more small condition: he demands you bring back the slime who kidnapped his little…punky muffin.”
The Scoop: 2008, PG, directed by Dave Filoni, starring: Matt Lanter, James Arnold Taylor, Ashley Eckstein
Tagline: No tagline
Summary Capsule: Anakin, Obi-Wan and friends fight battle droids a lot. Also, Dooku.
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“Excuse me, while I out my dog for the good of us all.”
The Scoop: 2005, M, directed by Ron Oliver and starring Chad Allen, Sebastian Spence, and Jack Wetherall
Tagline: A gay detective who always gets his man.
Summary Capsule: A detective takes on an attempted murder case for a client he can’t stand, and opens more cans of worms than he ever thought he would.
Well, this show has been on the road for eleven years, and over that time the Mutant Reviewers from Hell have undergone some changes. We’ve had reviewers and readers come and go. We’ve had people move. We’ve had people get married. We’ve had tragedies and scares. And we’ve had births.
Just given our age demographic, it’s not surprising. Of the current reviewers on staff, four of us are married, and at least nine of us are of the age where we can have children and our parents wouldn’t completely die of a heart attack. And our readers are hitting that same time in their lives. And as we do, what’s on our TVs changes.
The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that children under two don’t watch TV, and after that, children are exposed to a very limited amount of television. Now, I’m all for that, but at the same time, kids watching TV has some benefits, trust me. When your kid is sick, when it’s raining out, or when God forbid you actually want to cook dinner without someone under your feet constantly, the TV is a godsend.
But what can you put on? What isn’t completely shrill and annoying and is something that everyone in the house can actually tolerate? (At least the first 50 times.) Fortunately, I have answers. Now, this list is geared at the toddler set. It’s also geared at the times parents want to sit down and watch WITH their kids. I’m not saying that you should watch with your kids every second, because that can sometimes defeat the purpose (like the dinner-cooking one). But sometimes it’s nice to have a cuddle and share something you love with your child.
And one other caveat: I have two boys. There is a serious lack of princesses on this list.
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The topic for today’s Saturday Roundtable is this: If you could go back in time and be in charge of running the three Star Wars prequel movies (episodes 1-3), what would you do different? This is assuming that you HAVE to do them as prequels, you have to do three, and you can’t give a dismissive comment like “throw them in the trash”.
Start the discussion!
KYLE: First off, I certainly would NOT have wanted to see any of the cherished Original Trilogy characters as kids or anything ridiculous like that. But that doesn’t mean I would have cast Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru as young action heroes. Each prequel film would have taken place in a different era, ranging from thousands to finally maybe a hundred years prior to Episode IV. I would have been a lot more interested in the very beginning of the Jedi and Sith orders, early on as prophecies are made and tenets to operate by are devised. That way you can still have occasional hints towards what will come later (”No one will EVER make this Kessel Run in less than 18 parsecs!” and “One Sith will walk openly, his master will remain in shadows; no one will suspect their identity until it is TOO LATE!” and so on). I would be a lot more interested in the universe at large versus the origins of the handful of heroes and villains that decided the fate of their galaxy. I’m sure to play to the fans slightly that third prequel film would namedrop a couple lineages, or more likely show the origins of the man who would become Emperor Palpatine. Lots more moral gray areas and suspicious motivations, rather than the bland ineptness of the Jedi Order and far-too-easy manipulations of the Sith. How about you?
“I like this ship! It’s exciting!”
The Scoop: 2009 PG-13, directed by J.J. Abrams and starring Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto and Karl Urban
Tagline: The future begins.
Summary Capsule: Star Trek gets a reboot/prequel/sequel of sorts… but it’s all good (mostly).
Sci-fi (or Sy-Fy, as a certain channel would have us believe, because it’s “less geeky”) is one of those genres that just seems to produce cult gems and mockworthy spectacles. Either movies are brilliant or flat out terrible, it seems like there’s very little middle ground.
With that in mind, I decided to undertake watching the remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still. I’ve never seen the original, but this one has Keanu Reeves! (Unless he’s playing Ted, this does the opposite of impressing me.) Because the thing is, good movies can get boring to review, unless I find a good hook. I was going to do this one night when I was alone, but last night Duckie and I decided we were in the mood for “mindless”. What could be more mindless than a Keanu Reeves movie?
The topic on the table today is this: What movies were so cool to you as a kid, but now you are embarrassed to be in the same room as them?
Let’s hear what the Mutants have to say!
Mike: It’s funny, a friend of mine actually coined a term for this phenomena: Darkman Syndrome. It’s a weird category here. Mortal Kombat at the time it came out was the coolest thing I’d ever seen, and upon seeing it more recently I literally cringed at the crappy CGI, atrocious dialogue, and wooden acting, but alternatively, Howard the Duck has only improved in my estimation. Go fig.
