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Falling Skies S04E07

Posted by kidcarnival on August 5, 2014
Posted in: TV Tropia. Tagged: entertainment, falling skies, post apocalypse, review, scifi, skitters, tv. Leave a comment

This was almost a coherent episode, if it wasn’t for the people in it. It would also have made a much, much better midseason highlight than, well, the actual midseason episode.

Lexi left her cocoon and proceeded to kill Lourdes for no apparent reason (“to save her the pain” or something?) and announced her plan to leave the 2nd Mass because they “only have violence in their hearts”. No shit, Sherlock, after an alien invasion, it was sort of bound to happen, but let us not forget Lexi Stormborn is a 1 year old super hybrid, and hence kind of stupid. So Lourdes is dead. Lourdes was expected to die since early season 2 by viewers, and now it finally happened. Rather anticlimatic, but for her character, it was truly the best thing to happen.

Anyway, with Lexi gone to her “real family”, the Espheni, said real family immediately moves out to destroy what’s left of the 2nd Mass and their current shelter. Because Espheni totally don’t have violence in their hearts. Like I said, Lexi is kind of stupid. With some luck, the Espheni will turn their violence against her next and end this awful magic hybrid plot.

The 2nd Mass plans to make a last stand and kill the overlord Tom burned. Cochise conventiently shows up again to help out with the part that would involve explosives the 2nd Mass can’t possibly still possess; blowing up a strategically vital bridge. I can accept that as some kind of logic, except… the stand off doesn’t work as planned because of a gas pipe having a leak and blowing up a barricade. I’m not sure if the writers know how gas pipes work, but something has to put the gas in them. They aren’t like trees that just grow and if you cut them open, there’s wood in them. With at least 4 years passed since the invasion, and large parts of the infrastructure destroyed and, if season 1 is still to be believed, ALL the important things (like food and energy sources) trapped… where does the gas even come from? Oh well… Drama doesn’t grow on trees either, so the gas leak had to provide it, I guess.

Another long expected death occured: Tector blew himself up to make the overlord think Tom is dead. This was telegraphed last year when it became known Ryan Robbins would do double duty (signed for another show) and would likely have to limit his screentime due to that. Despite being one of the fortunate few non-Masons to get a backstory, it was a wise choice to opt out of Falling Skies. His death made sense, it was “going out in a blaze of glory” and therefore, Tector has the honor of being the one character to have lived and died with dignity in this show.

From the most dignified death to the least. This episode had quite a bodycount. Dr. Kadar also opted out, but in a much less blazingly glorious way. After the gas explosion, Weaver finds Kadar in his lab, trying to save samples taken from Lexi’s cocoon, and having a huge piece of glass sticking in his kidney. Only after Weaver points this out, and calls for Ann, Dr. Kadar realizes he is mortally wounded, drops to the floor and dies within a minute. For some reason, this upsets Tom a lot more than Lexi killing Lourdes.

Speaking of Lexi, there are some curious lines in here. Hal, now back to his less consistant, less logical self, directly asks Tom “so is she still a Mason now”, clearly suggesting he does not think so. Kudos for that; he’s definitely a bit smarter than the rest of his clan here. However, when Ben seeks out Lexi to have her call off the Espheni, she refers to Tom as “your father”, not “our father”. Room for speculation that Hal is actually right and she really is the child of Ann and the Espheni, and aware of not being a Mason. In that case, it was quite meta of her to leave the 2nd Mass and try to find a better shelter. Not everyone can be as blue-eyed as Pope and believe the Masons are the best bet for survival even if your name is not Mason.

I said Hal is back to his inconsistant self, then pointed out how he was clearly the smartest Mason recently. I got sidetracked, I need to mention that after Lourdes’ death and Hal’s rejection of Lexi as a Mason, he had a talk with Maggie (who, out of character, doesn’t throw a jealous ragefit due to Hal’s reaction to Lourdes’ death). He tells her, in cheesier words than neccessary, that the Espheni have figured out the humans’ true weakness – love. That they realized family and loved ones will always forgive each other, and therefore no-one will do the neccessary thing and kill a friend who is under alien influence. He refers to himself as a risk (his previous mole phase) and that it was a mistake to let all of the people who were infected back into the circle of trust. It’s a really logical stance – the Espheni created Lexi as a Mason, knowing full well Tom would never eliminate a family member. Not his half-skittered son Ben, not his mole-son Hal, not his indoctrination-camp-escapee son Matt; not himself after having a bug in his eyeball. Making him think their “super weapon” Lexi is his daughter was the perfect place to hide her in plain sight and even have the enemy protect the weapon. Hal has it all figured out right there… to just turn around and frantically scream for Maggie, out of love, putting the plan to “pretend we are all dead and hide in this old bomb shelter” at risk. Major Facepalm salutes you, Hal Mason.

By the end of the episode, Ben has lived up to his father’s legacy and let a blond girl talk him into boarding an Espheni ship. Maggie is missing, and the preview for next week suggests she’ll be found paralyzed. A role reversal with Hal being unable to walk in Charleston, and yet another drama point for the woman who already has the most impressive collection of the cast (cancer, drugs, prison, baby taken away, rape).

All in all, yeah, it was sort of a mess as usual, but I would rate this as one of the better episodes this season, mostly due to Tector’s heroic sacrifice and the little screentime Lexi had in total.

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Falling Skies S04E06

Posted by kidcarnival on July 28, 2014
Posted in: TV Tropia. Tagged: fail, falling skies, post apocalypse, review, scifi, skitters. Leave a comment

What.

I have no idea what I just watched. It’s total chaos and makes no sense. Hal suddenly sides with Tector and Pope, plotting to kill his sister – which bizarrely is the most sane choice anyone made in this episode. This also makes Hal the only Mason to realize that Lexi is a complete stranger, at least until the 5th Mason Family Hug. Dr. Kadar, who was some sort of physicist and engineer last season, is now also a memory recall therapist. This doesn’t mean he or Tom stops Ann when she strolls through the pristine lab to inject herself with a potentially lethal dose of whatever magic serum Kadar “found in an office pharmacy” though. Ann hallucinates or whatever, to realize that “Lexi needs her”. Lexi, by the way, is in a lava cocoon and the Volm told only Hal that Espheni are the most irrational and violent when they are young. Smart choice to not inform Tom, Weaver or anyone else, but whatever.

Ben has wet dreams about Maggie, who is reunited with Hal (he’s quite hot and cold when it comes to saner choices in these 45 minutes). Suspiciously absent is not only Deni, but also Popette, as well as any interest from Matt’s side to free the other children from the camp. In other words, two expected/feared romance plots seem to have been completely abandoned in favor for a romance subplot even less people wanted to see: a triangle with two Masons and the least liked female character.

I can only repeat: What?!!!

Falling Skies S04E05

Posted by kidcarnival on July 23, 2014
Posted in: TV Tropia. Tagged: falling skies, post apocalypse, review, scifi, skitters, tv. Leave a comment

Wow, the Espheni is Lexi’s father! What a reveal! Except, wasn’t that very, very strongly implied before anyway…? Like in Ann’s “dream”, where she saw him with some tentacle-tube sticking in her pregnant belly? Or all the times she said “it was you who did that to me”? I don’t know, but this surprise twist fell a bit short.

What else is new? The Volm are strategic masterminds. All they had to do to know every enemy’s position in the area was bringing down a single mech, and they never even considered or mentioned that until now? As a last resort? If this is something you can pull off with a barely armed, small force that is also on the run, why in the world haven’t they done this earlier? For dramatic effect?

On the Supemason front, absolutely nothing is new. As usual, the immortal genius got captured and outwitted the captors, with much humanity angst going around between Matt and Weaver.

Not much of a mid-season finale here, with a twist so predictable, it’s foreshadow could darken the sun.

Falling Skies S04E01-04

Posted by kidcarnival on July 22, 2014
Posted in: TV Tropia. Tagged: falling skies, post apocalypse, scifi, skitters. 4 Comments

While catching up on Falling Skies, I remembered making this blog thingy. Yeah, I know. I can be a bit absentminded sometimes. Anyway. Time to catch up with the 2nd Mass.

Tom Mason

No surprises here; he’s still the greatest human and leader to ever live and I couldn’t give a shit if I lived on a diet of laxatives. Flashback to season 1 when Tom risked everything to free Ben, except he now risks everything to free Matt. He also, as usual, boards an Espheni ship and is offered a deal and doesn’t take it, now haven’t we seen that roughly 25 times in the last 3 seasons already? It’s just boring as hell to see an immortal, omnipotent guy do the same things over and over again. But hey, it’s at least consistant.

Hal Mason

Consistency is something I can’t pin on Hal. So he was Tom’s second in command for the longest time and suddenly he needs daddy’s permission for everything? On the bright side, he seems to be over Maggie and so far, hasn’t been anywhere near Lourdes. Guess it counts for something.

Ben Mason

Nothing wrong here, except the creepy chemistry he has with Lexi Stormborn, the last dragon. I get many, many Targeryan vibes here and that is a bad, bad thing. I also have a bit of a hard time to see how he and Lexi came to be so close as siblings, considering Lexi has turned from a 5 years old girl into the expected “she’s like 1, but looks like 21”. Still, I’m not complaining. Ben was damn lucky so far.

Maggie

Umm, she’s around and her usual oh so tough self. Don’t really care either way.

Ann Glass

Ann went into full Parental Rage. Her entire character consists of “OMG MUST FIND LEXI”. Now she has found her, but I have very little hope to see anything other than “BUT SHE IS MY DAUGHTER” for the rest of the season.

Lexi Stormborn

Alexis is suddenly not 5 anymore, she’s conveniently 21. She also looks nothing like the child we saw anymore, she now looks like Danerys Targeryan, has magical powers like no-one else, not even Ben, and goddamnit, that’s why I hate this old super child that grows up really fast and gets crazy abilities shit. Duh, her Espheni friends want to use her as a superweapon. I hope they do that rather sooner than later, so this is over.

Cochise

The Volm left and don’t care about humans anymore, except for Cochise and a handful of soldiers. Well, there’s one thing the Volm and I have in common; I am losing interest myself (see below).

Lourdes

Holy fucking shit, on what drugs was the idiot who decided to trash her entire character development? She was one of the big hopes I had for this season, and what did I get? A delusional, passive-aggressive hippie priestess. Fuck that. I’m giving this one more episode, but really… This is so freaking bad, I don’t see a way to recover from such a blow to character development in general.

Matt Mason

How old is Matt again? 10? 11? Let him be 12 thanks to generous time skipping. Did he really need a love interest?! Not complaining about the general character development, but this is just fucking stupid. Plus since she was left behind, the Mason clan has yet another person to go after. It’s turning into BBC’s Survivors, where the entire plot was “variations of saving group members”.

Pope

Has the same problem Matt has: apparently, he’s getting a love interest. While Matt’s “girlfriend” isn’t neccessarily a bad character, Pope’s is a carbon copy of himself, which is the nail in his coffin. Pope always worked best in moderation; if the writers tried to include him in everything ever, it soon got lame and he ended up inconsistently complaining about everything. Now we’re getting twice the already slight overdose from season 3. Sad, since Pope was one of the few truly good characters in the beginning.

Dan & Jeanne Weaver

Colonel Predictable. Besides the usual “totally having Tom’s back” and worrying about his daughter, he plays up his heart condition a little more. Everything else is status quo. And, as many predicted last year, Jeanne did die and he did witness it and now he’ll probably start drinking or something.

Deni

Oh, yeah, she’s back. She’s never been gone, right? Still no background story, still no comment why she was absent for so long and why she’s suddenly back.

Anthony

Still lacking a last name and a really defined role in the group, but he’s alive and has lines. I’m still holding out hope he’ll get more of a backstory and a definition instead of bouncing from “3rd or 4th in command, if X isn’t around” or “voice of reason to someone (Ann) who doesn’t listen”.

Tector

Still around, now flipflopped to Hal’s second in command.

Lyle

Apparently got offed in the first 10 minutes of the premiere, and no-one even blinked.

Dr. Kadar

Still alive, still a genius in every sciencey science there is.

Dingaan

Probably the best thing about the season so far: the introduction of a new character who isn’t someone’s love interest (yet…).

 

Summary

As is apparently tradition, many major events such as the opening of indoctrination camps for children, the sudden decision to turn human adults into skitters after all and the beginnings of Lexi’s hippie community are left unexplained. And the Espheni have announced that yet another party is involved in the war; a small detail that they – as well as their long-time enemies, the Volm – neglected to mention. At this point, I think the writers are just out of ideas. So it’s Tom being offered deals and declining on Espheni ships, saving a son and being an allround super leader; it’s a new random alien race; it’s people stressing over where other people are over and over again. A big part of me wishes the 2nd Mass had retired to Brazil.

Antibodies (2005)

Posted by kidcarnival on December 27, 2013
Posted in: B-Movies. Tagged: movie, review, serial killer. 1 Comment

Here is a movie that knows how to confuse. It isn’t a bad movie at all; it’s a rather compelling story about a serial killer; Silence of the Lambs style, but with the flair of Small Town Europe. So let’s start with the story. A Berlin cop named Seiler manages to capture serial killer Gabriel Engel, who confesses the murder of 14 boys. During the investigation, it turns out that Engel was in the area where a 12 years old girl was killed, in a small village outside Berlin. The country cop Michael Martens is brought in to help interrogate Engel and find out if he also killed the girl.

What irritates me will likely not irritate someone who doesn’t speak German or is familiar with German language TV in general. First of all, it seems very odd that German A-listers – most notably Wotan Wilke Möhring as Martens and Heinz Hoenig as Seiler – are the key players, yet Norman Reedus (who plays a cop with no lines who is in the movie for roughly 3 minutes) is listed in the opening credits. Why is he even there? I don’t understand. However, this is just a small distraction, considering the screentime he has and the complete length of the movie (just above 2 hours).

André Hennicke is just great as Gabriel Engel, but he would also be great as… Jürgen Milski. For context: Jürgen Milski’s claim to fame is coming in second in the first German season of Big Brother, a lifetime ago, after which he moved on to a C-list “celeb” for no particular activity. His career includes some party animation on Mallorca and “Ballermann-Parties” and appearances on shows like Dancing with the Stars, I’m a celebrity – Get me out of here, celeb cooking shows and hosting a call-in quiz show. It is confusing as hell if the depraved child killer is a dead ringer for a the archetype of a carnival cruise DJ. And this is why I say André Hennicke does a hell of a job in this movie – he’s convincing as killer despite having a lookalike like that.

The last quite irritating point only comes up for German native speakers – it’s Seiler, the seasoned city cop, who exclusively speaks in slang terms. I have no idea what the writers were thinking here. You simply don’t hear cops refer to DNA evidence as “the jizz of that sick cumfuck”. At absolutely no point does this character talk like an actual cop, or even a regular person – it seems like an attempt to be gritty and grizzled, but it sounds like a 9 years old kid trying to get a reaction from teachers by using vulgar terms. This is very distracting, and if I wouldn’t find it even worse to watch dubbed movies, I would have switched to English during the movie.

Famous Last Words: Surprisingly good movie that manages to overcome most of the irritating things, but not all.

The Dunwich Horror (2009)

Posted by kidcarnival on December 27, 2013
Posted in: B-Movies. Tagged: b-movie, horror, lovecraft, movie, remake, review. Leave a comment

Frankly, one of the weaker Lovecraftian remakes. The cast and acting is nice, but I really can’t get over the effects in this one. Yes, it’s a TV movie, so I should be forgiving, so I’m not saying it’s total trash and unwatchable. It’s sort of entertaining, but still – the comical green glowing and the tentacles just stand out as awful. Also, I’m super lazy today, so I just leave it at that.

Famous Last Words: Not every movie needs a remake.

Citizen X (1995)

Posted by kidcarnival on December 26, 2013
Posted in: B-Movies. Tagged: andrei chikatilo, movie, review, serial killer. Leave a comment

For Christmas, I decided to watch something quiet, tranquil and less gory than ususal – a movie based upon the case of Andrei Chikatilo, the most prolific serial killer in the Soviet Union. “Citizen X” does a wonderful job here; the cast is excellent and the atmosphere transports the frustration of the investigators, yet isn’t frustrating to watch.

In the very beginning, I feared the movie would make the common mistake to slap fake accents on everyone, but luckily this isn’t the case and the few instances where a Russian accent comes through are believable. Unlike the various true crime documentaries that feel the need to have English voice overs with a thick accent to translate the native speakers. Seriously, what the hell? But that has nothing to do with the movie. That I kept thinking “what if Chikatilo was played by Brad Douriff? Would that make the movie even better?” may be relevant, and I can answer it with “na, it’s fine as it is”.

Famous Last Words: A better documentary than actual documentaries – recommended.

The Loved Ones (2009)

Posted by kidcarnival on December 23, 2013
Posted in: B-Movies. Tagged: b-movie, cannibal, gore, movie, Overly Attached Girlfriend meme, rape'n'revenge, review, torture, torture porn. Leave a comment

This is what comes out if you crossbreed Jeffrey Dahmer, Carrie and the Overly Attached Girlfriend meme. It is not neccessarily a good thing.

There is Lana, Lara, Laura, Lorna or something, who asks Ben to go to the school ball with her, and learns that Ben is going with his girlfriend Holly, Molly or Hailey. This leads Lana-Lara-Laura-Lorna’s dad to kidnap Ben, play school ball at home for his daughter, and this results in the attempt to drill a hole in Ben’s head and boil his brain with hot water to make him “one of them”. “Them”, in this case, is Laura-Lorna’s mother (?), a zombie-like creature who apparently already underwent this procedure. And possibly the cannibal freaks living in the basement.

So far, so good. It’s not such a bad premise to have a deranged teenage girl creating a braindead homecoming king. However, this movie tries too hard to be smarter than such a story allows. It begins with Ben killing his father in a car crash caused by a bloodcovered boy standing on the road. This boy turns out to be the brother of the goth metal chick Ben’s chubby stoner friend takes to the actual school ball. And the son of the (seemingly only) cop searching for Ben after he fails to pick up Holly-Molly-Hailey. This subplot adds absolutely nothing to the story. Chubby Stoner and Goth Metal Chick add some awkward sex’n’drugs scenes that are irrelevant and not even neccessary to get a higher rating. The torture scenes involving Ben are perfectly enough to qualify this movie as something between mild torture porn and rape’n’revenge with a male victim.

The stupidity highlight reel shows Ben trying to escape by climbing on a freaking tree, and the kidnapper duo throwing stones at him until he falls down; the incredible coincidence of a perfectly functional flashlight just happening to be in the basement when Ben is thrown in there, and the rather random incest implications that just scream “we’re working down a list labeled CONTROVERSIAL THEMES”.

Famous Last Words: Nice try, but nothing more.

Vile (2011)

Posted by kidcarnival on December 17, 2013
Posted in: B-Movies. Tagged: b-movie, gore, movie, rape'n'revenge, review, torture, torture porn. Leave a comment

Promising idea – some mysterious scientist kidnaps a bunch of people who have to torture each other to release a certain amount of brain liquids that are only released when experiencing extreme pain. Though this does have the more interesting angle of torture porn – unwilling torturers doing what has to be done to survive – it sadly makes some big mistakes. First, the abduction of the group of friends is ridicolous. Instant K.O. perfume? Oh come on. Second, pretty much everyone is way too easily on board with “alright, let’s just torture this guy”. Third, despite a few characters standing out for having a personality, they are ultimately mostly forgettable and I couldn’t put a name to each face most of the time. And last but not least, the plot twist and… let’s call it the attempt of a classic rape’n’revenge ending, underlined the absurdity of the brain implants premise. The unplugging and collecting of the bottles was too unrealistic – up to this point, it was possible to suspend disbelief and not question the implants too much, and the torture, injuries and consequences were believable.

All in all, it’s probably one of the better movies in this category due to little time spent with building up the doomed characters, an acceptable death toll and generally moderate, realistic gore, but still stays behind the expectations.

Famous Last Words: Nothing special.

Experiment in Torture (2007)

Posted by kidcarnival on December 17, 2013
Posted in: B-Movies. Tagged: b-movie, fail, gore, rape'n'revenge, review, slasher, torture. Leave a comment

Christ on a bike, what a shitty movie. 80 full minutes with airheads: uninspired kills, inconsistant “story”telling with no logic or structure, acting on soap opera level, shaky camera to obscure the underwhelming effects, a pseudo-BDSM theme and painfully stupid cardboard cutout cliché characters.

Maybe I can’t appreciate dumb chicks in bikinis enough, maybe I lack of the ability (or desire) to even attempt to keep 5 near identical looking strippers apart, maybe I’m just jaded. But I simply can’t see any redeeming qualities in a movie where absolutely no-one notices that one of the various killers wears a handsome-human rubbermask over his Freddy Kruger pizza face; people apparently change their names at will, everyone has a surprise sibling and the attempt to make sense of it all in a wooden epilogue police report fails horribly by adding more “background” to random, previously unimportant “characters” than the first 76 minutes.

So, umm. Story. 6 strippers get hired to do a fetish movie in a house by a lake. Some dude is there as a host. There is some violence; some pseudo-reasons (“mutilation as artform”), much confusion who is who and why they are there and how they know each other; various other guys and possibly two or three previously never mentioned women and everyone is somehow the killer, related to the killer or the victims, of which most – disappointingly – survive. After all that, a failed “edgy” final scene of a girl going insane. Or whatever.

Famous Last Words: Someone misunderstood “torture porn” – it’s supposed to be a genre that treats violence like a porn film treats sex; exploitative, sensationalist, unapologetic and uncensored. It is NOT supposed to be a genre that has strippers, a lame fetish theme and is a pain to watch. And that’s exactly what “Experiment in Torture” is – could as well be titled “Experiment in Viewer Patience”.

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