scottwallvashon

This show is depressing, claustrophobic, and cliché. It has an assortment of characters and plot elements borrowed from other plays and shows.

There is the disillusioned war hero that decides to sign on as sheriff. There is Lady Macbeth. There is the great leader that doubts her abilities. Of course, there is Romeo and Juliet.

The show centers on a rebuilt town trying to hold its own against a fallen and desperate world. That is the claustrophobic part.

And the whole show is, no doubt, filled with contemporary liberal morality. "We must learn to accept diversity in a new world where everyone is an immigrant." Not that they really are. That is just what we are supposed to accept. Never mind that the newly diverse crowd has destroyed the environment and left civilization in ruin.

I miss shows like Star Trek that centered on a positive future that is moving forward. This show features a world hopelessly lost in the middle ages. Please, no more remakes of Mad Max!

I watched this because I heard it was surprising…something special. It turned out to be a silly liberal fantasy. Darwinian capitalism? Social justice? {Re}distribute {the wealth} to Dayton? Don't think of it as stealing, think of it as repossession? Too much time in the wrong hands can crash the market? "They" will just keep raising the cost of living? Is it stealing if it's already stolen? Darwin's birthday?

But they don't mean evolution do they? No, they mean social darwinism: the left's new catch phrase. Did Barack Obama write this script? How much pretense can they pack into 109 minutes? Is this what we have come to? Are we now a nation of screaming yippies?

There is no historical, political, economic, or social model that supports the ideas presented here? There is no Malthusian catastrophe. There is no pending global catastrophe. Robots will work for us. We will not work for them. The poor will not be ground up and made into fertilizer for the machines of the rich.

God is not dead.

This is pretentious faux deep nonsense. It was designed so that pretentious faux deep pseudo intellectuals could watch it, then sit around, smoke cigarettes, and say pretentious faux deep things. The things they say will be gibberish, but they and their pretentious faux deep friends can pretend that they have meaning so that they feel sophisticated. Many of us knew them in college. I think a Saturday Night Live skit was made about these sorts of people featuring Catherine Zeta-Jones, but I can't recall the exact episode.

I heard that this was intelligent science fiction. It wasn't. It had a pinch of vague stereotypical psi phenomena so that it could jump genres, but the psi had nothing to do with the plot. I waded through the whole thing hoping that there would eventually be some point. There wasn't. It was just the same old annoying and sometimes creepy sexual tension and promiscuity mixed with a lot of emoting and confusion.

I would give this movie one star, but that would be unfair since the acting was reasonably good. It's not the actors' fault they got dragged into this thing. They probably needed the work. The actors deserve some small concession.

First of all, a succubus is a female demon, not a female monster that "sucks" the life out of lovers. This show is just the actualization of a false onomatopoeia. If they had wanted to make yet another show about vampires (which is all this show is) they should have called it "Yet another Show about Vampires".

How is this different or better than the versions we already have, "Sanctuary", and "Being Human"? Sigh fie is doing for science fiction what "Friends" and "How I met your mother" did for sitcoms: standardizing them into a pale presumptuous set of stereotypes. I once had an English professor who thought science fiction was all about "monsters". As a result of these shows on the sigh fie channel, there will be a new batch of English professors who think science fiction is all about groups of monsters in domestic settings—more specifically, syndicates of vampires and vampire variants attempting to live in harmony with humans.

The sigh fie channel is becoming the gruel of the science fiction genre. It is the pale flavorless soup that keeps (something) alive to experience endless monotony and tedium—repetition of the same old rituals and prayers—copying and recopying manuscripts, even at the expense of better and more creative works. The sigh fie channel is becoming the Bram Stoker palimpsest.

This movie is my evidence that science fiction is not about special effects. The special effects were just about as minimal as anything I have ever seen. Yet, the sense of wonderment was maximized. The image of another Earth looming in the sky was much more compelling than the monsters and mayhem regularly featured on the sigh fie channel or in the mega budget blockbusters that regularly come to the theater.

I have read a lot of discussion about how this movie does not explain a parallel Earth appearing in the sky. In my opinion, that is how something like this would actually manifest. When Columbus landed in America, it was not what he expected. He was trying to reach China. He did not anticipate an unknown continent intervening. If a parallel earth appeared in the sky, it would not be in a way that we expect or for reasons that are immediately obvious. It would take a lot of experimentation and observation for scientists to make headway on how it happened.

I just finished watching the pilot for Three Inches. It would have made a good Disney film if they had made it 45 years ago (except for the violence, of course). It actually reminds me a lot of The Absent Minded Professor with Fred MacMurray—the scene where they attached flubber to the bottoms of their feet and won the basketball game.

What has become of the Sci-Fi (oh sorry…Syfy) Channel? Whatever happened to the notion that science fiction is about the exploration of ideas? Everything they have to offer is either abominably cute or a reworked cliché. It is either a magical place where anything can happen as long as it is mixed with unbearably light humor or a vampire living together with a werewolf and a ghost (all cliché).

Three Inches seems to be a combination of both kinds of show offered by the Syfy Channel: cliché and adorable. I realize it was being considered as an alternate for Alphas, but that is even more to the point. Why were they considering two such similar (and ultimately cliché) shows? Couldn't they also have been considering a show about inter-dimensional travel? Now that I think of it, whatever happened to space opera? When Battlestar Galactica ended, couldn't they have looked into something along those lines?

Instead, we have vampires, werewolves, ghosts, campy towns with magical properties, and super heroes with limited powers. Oh yea, there are the reality shows. As Bender would say, "Gag unto me with a spoon."

When the Sci-Fi Channel was invented, especially in an environment where it seemed possible to create any illusion one could imagine, I thought it was the return of the golden age of science fiction.

Oh, the agony. It's like someone stuck me with a three inch knife—not enough to kill; just enough to maim.

The first regular episode, instinct, was so much better than the pilot that I can barely explain it. Was it a different writer? With the title "Instinct", and with the soap opera buildup they seemed to be pushing, I was expecting it to be a show about adultery or some other base human failing.

It turns out that it was the same writers. How did this happen? I suppose it could be that they were so anxious to set the show up in a certain way they let go of all rationality. They wanted a father who had been in prison and escaped and an angry son that didn't respect laws and customs. They didn't stop to think that they had forced these developments so hard they would undermine the shows credibility. Now that the scenario is set up, they are doing great things with it.

OK, I'll give this show a chance. I almost can't believe they could match what they did this evening. It was just too impressive.

This is a silly, violent, unhistorical fantasy. I guess it must make sense to someone who still hates the Nazis so much that they revel in seeing them brutalized, killed, and dismembered. Never mind that nothing in it is remotely similar on any level to anything that actually happened in World War II.

I am sitting here trying to imagine what motivated this creation and how it made it to production. Are there Jewish persons among us that need to see something like this? Possibly, but they can't be prevalent. Are there young people who might be duped into thinking this is historical? Why would anyone do that? Why would someone want them to believe the war ended like this instead of the arguably more dramatic way that it actually did end? Was this just a bizarre excuse to make a graphically violent film that an oddly disturbed new audience might be willing to pay money to see?

I never got the SAW movies either. Yet, I have heard young people praising them and eagerly comparing notes. Is this another film for that crowd? Is it just another violent blood fest masquerading as art? Don't bother answering. If you think this film has merit, you have already lost my attention.

After ten minutes of this film, I walked out. I had some doubt about this decision until I read on ComicBookMovie.com how the writer/director Zack Snyder explains the meaning of the title: "I think sucker punch sums it up for me. Look, literally it's like a mechanism in the film that kind of brings us back into reality I think. But I think on the other hand, because the movie is a slight indictment – it talks about geek culture and pop culture, it talks about the why of the action cinema and stuff of that nature – it's also a sucker punch because I kind of designed it that you go to this movie for entertainment and you get a little bit f*cked up by it, hopefully. (http://www.comicbookmovie.com/fansites/BrentSprecher/news/?a=33931)" In other words, the whole point of the film is to punish people like me who go to see action films. He goes on to compare action films to brothels and to compare those of us who watch them to leering men who visit brothels. This makes me very angry. If I had known about this as I walked out of the movie, I would also have asked for my money back. Maybe I still will ask for my money back. Maybe I will go back to the theater with my ticket and my receipt and demand my admission fee.

This movie has everything you could ask for: pro environmentalist propaganda; anti religious cynicism; meaningless violence; defacement of patriotic symbols; erratic camera work that gave me a headache; every moment is a high point; countless has-been actors in cameo roles.

I think this is another example of a completely synthetic production. They added up years of data taken from observing successful action films of the past and just sort of threw it all together. The nice thing is that it doesn't matter where you come into the movie or where you exit. It is so homogeneous that any portion is an action film unto itself.

I realized after a while that it would make a good music video. When I turned off the sound and tuned the radio to a modern rock station, it actually worked. The commercials kind of messed that up. It would have been good to TiVo it and cut them out. Oh well, next time.

This is an exciting and intensely suspenseful movie. It didn't have much to do with the original. It didn't have much to do with anything.

Supposedly, they found something in the network that would change everything. It was supposed to be miraculous...but it looked like a girl.

There were no new ideas, but they put a shiny new finish on some old ones.

It was a little difficult to grasp why one computer program should look like bleached out accompaniment for Robert Palmer or another should be playing air guitar.

The sensurround, or whatever they call it now, was a bit much. Thank God I was wearing earplugs or I wouldn't have any hearing left. It's surprising my bones didn't dissolve.

3-D isn't any good. They just don't have the process down to the point where it actually adds to the experience.

I would see this movie just for the reference. Expect big things, but no great things.

This movie starts with the presumption that global warming is not a myth. Then it gets worse. I'm surprised legitimate environmentalist fanatics allowed something like this to be made. It reduces the credibility of their already shrinking mythology to an absolutely silly fantasy.

How did they get James Brolin to make a movie like this? Didn't he save anything from his Markus Welby days?

It suddenly occurred to me what a silly name Markus Welby is: "Mark us well." Unbelievable!

Well, maybe James was just trying to reach some potential new environmentalist fanatics. Where better to look than people who might like an absolute hack of a science fiction movie borrowing from elements of such giants as Waterworld?

"The Rising". Catchy name. Maybe environmentalists should adopt that name instead of global warming. That would be much more dramatic. Did it ever occur to anyone that global warming is a remake of the story of Noah?

Well yes. I guess it did. The writers of this movie. That must be it. Give global warming a fresh new look. Retell it in the language of the Old Testament. That should sell some inconvenient books!

Like many of the things the sigh fie channel puts out, this looked good in the previews. But it wasn't. It was just another endless, meaningless monster driven blood fest.

When they started on their quest, I had hopes that something remarkable—or at least surprising—might turn up. All they found was an abandoned city (expected) and a tyrant. There was nothing compelling or inspiring.

This is a future derived from our own civilization. The disease that threatens them is a disease from our own technology. It is just another super flu. It is nothing more than rabies on steroids. The magic powder is nothing but a vaccine.

And, of course, it was all the fault of overzealous capitalists. If only they had listened to the wise guild of environmentalist humanists none of this would have happened!

Skip this and watch Dancing with the Stars or Celebrity Apprentice. Sure they're silly…but they are not a disappointment.

I usually get through ten minutes of these movies before I am ready to write my review, but this time it took only five.

The so-called "frost giant" is the typical SyFy low-grade CGI Saturday night monster that kills indiscriminately until it is in turn killed. At least this time around the monster doesn't kill by neatly bisecting bodies. This one is a freezer. The characters it freezes are the typical two-dimensional shallow malcontent over-dramatic idiots.

Boring, boring, boring. And then it gets really boring. And then it bores you to death. The pseudoscience and faux history don't help much either. It's too bad they get actors like Dean Cain to do this sort of thing. I really feel sorry for the actors. Can't these guys make enough money off their good movies and TV shows to span these dry spells?

Oh well

Like most modern films, it has very few if any original ideas. Mostly, it just has rearrangements of ideas from successful films of the past. The ones that come to mind are Dreamscape, Vanilla Sky, The Prisoner (2009 miniseries), The Cell, and Total Recall.

If you know anything about dream or sleep research you will have to actively suspend a ton of disbelief. I think this must have been written years ago or by someone who didn't check any sources.

I was disappointed upon recognizing the narrow scope of the film. However, when I saw where they went with it and how deeply they went into it, I was pleasantly surprised. I was ultimately pulled into the movie.

The first half hour of this movie consists of inane whining from a disgruntled military wife complaining about her husband's professional secrecy. This is complemented by identical whining from her identical twin daughter. Then, there is the endless exchange of people looking at computer monitors reporting on changes in some sort of radioactive bombardment.There are also scenes of people running from bad guys with guns and fissures opening in roads as SUV's are furiously trying to navigate their way to some obscure base. I can't say what happened through the rest of the movie because I couldn't stand it any more and had to change the channel. Have I written my ten lines yet?

Since I didn't finish watching the movie, I came here to IMDb to see what the reviews said. I was astonished to learn that this movie has a rating of 2.2. I can't think of a single other movie with such a low rating. I wasn't even sure that was statistically possible. Can anyone think of a movie with a rating that low? Oh well, it is a good thing I didn't waste the next 90 minutes of my life.

This was much better than I expected. It actually had an idea and a structure. It provided the "theory" that was missing from the much more extravagant 2012.

The ending not only tied the plot together, but gave a nice finishing touch to the story's hero. And the hero of the story was much more appealing than the self-righteous know-it-all that they typically feature in this type of movie.

If this movie had more impressive special effects and more style, it would be a superior version of the 2012 film. It is a mystery to me how 2012 got made without a real plot, but this movie that actually has a plot got made on such a small budget.

I feel bad speaking poorly of this film in the midst of so many positive reviews. Honestly, though, I think those who have reviewed this film positively out of a sense of loyalty to the Scriptures have done a terrible disservice to those who read these reviews to make viewing decisions.

It is correct that this film follows the Gospel of Mathew closely. However, the bad acting and the abrupt barking out of lines make it impossible to gain any sense of the mystique or eloquence of the man who held thousands spellbound. This Jesus reminds me of a genius/showoff I knew in high school. His sharp wit disarmed everyone but inspired no one.

The Gospels are the Gospels, but film-making is film-making. If you are going to make a film about Jesus, you have to draw on all the filmmaker's tricks to convince the audience he is the Son of God. The designers of old cathedrals understood the value of showmanship. So too must filmmakers who wish to portray the Gospels.

Maybe the Gospels can't be done on film any more than Shakespeare can be done on film. Maybe they simply have to be done with more liberty. To date, Jesus of Nazareth is the best version I have seen. It may be weak on Gospel exactitude, but it portrays a Jesus that inspires. Anyone can read the Gospels—movies are about images and impressions. In Jesus of Nazareth we see a Jesus that stands in the world but looks into heaven. If the film is weak on Gospel detail, then let the would-be interested party go to the actual Gospels for the rest of the message.

Avatar is preachy anti western propaganda. I think everyone understood that from the onset. Yet, it does contain enough new ideas, artfully presented, to keep it interesting throughout.

It is a visual landmark. From this day forward we can expect the vivid realization of worlds we have never dreamed of. There may still be a handful of technical kinks to work out, but basically filmmakers can show us anything they want us to see as if we are standing right in the midst of it.

Now to the preachy part. It is sad that the sages of Hollywood can realize a completely structural justification for what amounts to animism but can not imagine the possibility of a similar, albeit less easily understood, justification for some of the monotheistic religions. Gaia is possible, but God is not? Couldn't there be some similar all encompassing structure that ties together and embraces everything in the universe? Maybe we are seeing in the strings of superstring theory something akin to the tentacles of Avatar's great neural network.

Cameron seems to say in this film that creatures at the level of making bows and arrows and covering themselves with woven fabric can still be within the parameters of ecological balance but that creatures capable of building machines of steel that fly and walk can not. I would like to think that when humans arrive at the level of being able to travel to other planets and inject their consciousness into a biological counterpart they might also acquire some degree of subtlety. Couldn't they mine the desired elements with something small and unobtrusive so as not to disturb the local inhabitants and their ecosystem? What about the possibility of nanobots or at least very small mechanical moles? Are we to believe that a Hollywood filmmaker can grasp the significance of a planetary neural network but that the inheritors of our own technological achievements could not?

I suppose the thing that bothers me about this film is not the implied guilt of western civilization, but the arrogance of holier than thou film makers who presume they have some global awareness of universal truths unattainable to simpletons who merely advance and perfect technology. After all, isn't this film the culmination of vast amounts of human technology? Isn't it made possible by the gigantic system of theaters and persons willing to pay money to see this creation? How could anyone make a quarter of a billion dollar movie if it was not funded through the system of theaters where is it seen and by the people who pay to see it? The bad, ignorant, capitalistic grunts who stand accused in this film are the same ones who are supporting Cameron's habit.

Everyone should—rather must—see this film. It represents a transitional event in the art of visual representation. I just wish Hollywood would get off its high horse and look its fellow earthlings in the eye. Really, the universe is big enough for all of us!

This show is stupid in ways that an ordinary imbecile couldn't think of. The setting is silly and the plot developments are ridiculous without the humor that might justify such antics. The sigh fie channel could have made a sequel to The Lost Room for a fraction of the cost. Instead, they made this empty-headed nuisance.

Characters and settings are dressed up like carnival props with no apparent justification. Men in black suits ride pink flamingos and attack obviously fake decoy soldiers. This is a mess of completely illogical developments and completely intangible motivations.

Were they trying to regain the glory of Tin Man? I didn't realize Tin Man had so much glory to regain. No matter—this won't do it. It's just too abominably stupid.

This is cute, and I'm glad I watched it.

The beginning is just too chaotic and slapstick. It turns out that there is a reason for that, so you have to keep watching or you won't get it.

You won't believe it, but it all eventually comes together to form a coherent and meaningful plot line. This is important to know going in, because otherwise you may stop paying attention or give up altogether. I almost did and now I am glad I didn't

I gave this only seven stars based on the story telling. It may deserve more.

Nothing can prepare you for this movie. No matter what you think it is going to be like or about, you will be surprised. It doesn't begin, middle, or end anything like I imagined. It is genuinely original. True, it uses plot devices that have been used before, but it uses them in completely original and unexpected ways.

It is, of course, absolutely absurd. Part of the fun is trying to decide where to draw the line, first between plausibility and absurdity, and later between absurdity and ridiculousness. It is a brand new story told in the tradition of a tall tale.

This movie is for everyone. It manages to contain exciting action and strong emotion without being bloody or perverse. I am an older male adult, not given to emotion, but I actually cried during some of the later scenes. This was embarrassing, but also satisfying.

2012 is a bizarre combination of Hollywood clichés, Indiana Jones action scenes, and the perverse spectacle of the World Trade Center attacks.

I have come out of movies feeling many different emotions: inspiration, anger, hope, titillation, disappointment, you name it. This is the first time I have ever come out of a movie feeling ashamed. I am sorry that I contributed money to the machine that produced this blasphemy and I am ashamed that I may have enjoyed watching it.

In a single instant we are watching a comical action scene of an airplane dodging falling buildings juxtaposed with thousands of people being crushed or falling to their death. Even if this movie is somehow entertaining, it is still wrong.

If the world actually does end in 2012, this movie could be cited as one justification for ending it.

For those who dreaded the conclusion of Battlestar Galactica, this is a passable substitute.

The characters are deeper than your typical sigh-fie channel character and the situations they encounter are more sophisticated. This is a slower more patient species of science fiction. It is the thinking person's Stargate.

Most importantly, to me, I find that I care about the characters and am curious about what happens next. I couldn't get that feeling with either of the prior Stargate series'. I certainly couldn't get it with the sigh-fie channel's imbecilic flagship Warehouse 13.

This is quite possibly the most hideously anti-American anti-patriotic film ever made by a western producer.

Persons who support the American war effort in Iraq and who are opposed to terrorism are portrayed as hateful racists who commit an unthinkable crime in the name of patriotism.

Then, these persons are brought to justice; not by secular forces, but by the supernatural and presumably infallible forces of the spirit world. It is a feeble attempt to put a supernatural stamp of approval on holier-than-thou liberalism.

I recommend that you watch this film just to see how deeply entrenched the forces of skullduggery have become.