Generic Action Movie Review by Bill Klein I went to a movie the other night at the multiplex. It starts out with some guy getting killed and then there are these explosions. Anyway, then we see the Hero Guy and he gets this hot-looking babe for a new partner and you know they are going to wind up having sex later on in the movie because she acts like she can't stand him. Naturally, she is like in her early twenties and I read an article on him in People magazine where he just turned 70 and is taking Viagra and getting regular prostate checks but he's still sexy though. It seems that she has a personal stake in this because this same guy killed her brother or maybe it was her fiancé or even her sister. I didn't see that part because I was getting more popcorn and Raisinets for the human vacuum cleaner who was my date that evening, but nobody else in the movie finds that out until later on because if they had they would have disqualified her from the case as we all know that when you let emotions get in the way of you doing your job you are headed for trouble. Which of course is exactly what happens when she begins investigating on her own while the Hero Guy is trying to reestablish a relationship with his estranged teenaged daughter and he has to contend with his ex-wife who you can tell still loves him but couldn't take being a cop's wife and is now married to a man who is always there when she needs him but of course is about as charismatic and exciting as a Sears living room set but he is "safe." In between all this, we also get to meet their police captain boss who yells a lot and threatens them with suspensions and crossing-guard duty or such like, informants who look like they haven't bathed since the Carter administration, and second-tier Hot Babes playing barmaids and Hookers With Hearts Of Gold who all hint at former relationships with the Hero Guy. So anyway, to get back to the story, he and his daughter go on an outing and are just starting to bond when he gets the call that his partner, the Hot Babe, is missing and he knows exactly where to go because of a few obscure clues provided earlier in the movie that nobody else paid attention to or wrote down but he suddenly remembers and he has to cut the outing short and the daughter and the ex-wife of course are miffed and say the standard lines about how some things never change and so on and so forth The Hot Babe partner has screwed up and either tripped while being chased or discovered the whole operation and was captured from behind, you know the drill. Of course the bad guy can't be killed right away because if the Hero Guy kills him the Hot Babe will be plunged into some unspeakably horrible death but the Hero Guy manages to free her in a harrowing ordeal and leaves her to rub her sore ankle(s) while he gives chase and I'm wondering when the hell this is all going to end because the jumbo Coke I bought before the movie has begun to work its magic and I have to go to the bathroom really bad. They chase each other through a maze of surprise!- rafters and catwalks and such and there are bullets careening off metal and sending chunks of concrete and wood spraying just inches from each other's heads until finally the bad guy is trapped in a spot where there is nothing below him except a straight 200-foot drop to the floor of a warehouse- you DID know it was a warehouse didn't you?- which is full of pointy things like, say, church steeples or plastic icicles or something and the Hero Guy drills him with lead and he falls from the platform and gets perforated like a sheet of supermarket coupons. Hero and Hot Babe go back to her place and do it like rabbits. The End. So do I recommend this movie? Heck, why not? It's a good way to kill two hours with a date you really don't want to talk to anyway because you're just trying to get sex. Go to the 8:00 show so that means you don't get to the bar until 10:30 or 11 or so, that way you don't get too plastered to raise the old drawbridge if you get my drift. Besides, you're going to see this movie eventually anyway. It may have a different cast and a different title but it will still be "The edge-of-your-seat action thriller of the summer!" according to some two-bit hack who also writes the obituaries for the Dubuque Register or some similar cutting-edge publication. Rated R for the nudity, violence, sexual content and obscene language, all of which is used to try and cover up the lame plot and limp dialogue but isn't successful. Lots of bare breasts though, always a good thing. Critic's Rating: *** (out of five) © 2001 by Bill Klein; all rights reserved. Read another piece by Bill in the Naked Humorist Archives. Currently residing in Virginia, Bill Klein hasn't decided what he wants to be when he grows up. In the meantime, check out his new Web site: BillKleinOnline. Bill has contributed articles to Themestream, The Vines, WrittenByMe, and other various and sundry sites from which he is hoarding his sizeable remuneration in hopes of someday purchasing a Happy Meal. |
If the Air Is Thin, This Must Be Colorado A creative, semi-autobiographical Tale of Dragony Adventure in which Pamela (aka Chief Dragon) shares her struggles to breathe in Colorado, recounts the move back east, and copes without her beloved Consort, who has been shipped off to sea. by Pamela Matlack The hardest part about maintaining two residences, one near sea level and the other above 6,000 feet, is that one's sinuses tend to become agents provocateur and work actively for the imminent downfall of the corpus delectable. Then there is the business of oxygen being in short supply in most parts of Colorado. This is a little-known problem that the Colorado Tourist Board has been staunchly denying since their inception (for the express purpose of denying that there is a lack of oxygen in Colorado. See how nicely that works?). Between not being able to draw breath most of the time and what little desiccated air was able to filter through sinal discharge being mostly hydrogen, nitrogen, and dust, the Chief Dragon, when Resident in the Weyr West, was only capable of operating in safe mode. However she managed to make that count for a lot and, with a few trips back east to breath real air, stood the travail in pretty good shape. TREKKING EAST ON THREE CYLINDERS Things moved pretty fast from July on. The Consort was offered and accepted an opportunity to join the "DynCorp Navy" that allowed permanent removal to the Weyr East, awash in moist, oxygen-rich air. In rather short order clothing, cats and computers were crammed into a U-Haul and dragged across six entire states and the better part of two. After this Herculean task was accomplished it was discovered, during a routine check-up, that the Consortmobile was only firing on three cylinders. Testimony to the urgency felt by both Consort and Dragon to get their collective butts east, the sluggish performance of the vehicle was attributed to trailer weight and too much oxygen. A new set of plug wires later and all is hunky-dory. Alas, there is a small fly in the ointment. In order to become an eastcoaster the Consort had to agree to spend the next four months floating around in one of our finer oceans. This would not have been so bad were it not for a certain group of Arab terrorists now holed up in Afghanistan (but not for long, as the Chief Dragon is near to perfecting her cave-flaming technique and plans to put an end to their games for good and all.) A STUDY IN TIME PASSAGES OR IS IT FEBRUARY YET? It is well known to small children and anyone who has ever waited in a downpour for a bus, that the subjective speed at which time passes is inversely proportionate to how desperately one wishes it to pass. The Consort has been gone for three weeks but it feels like three years and so many Roman Emperors stole days from February to add to their own months that it disappeared entirely and will never happen again. In the meantime the Chief Dragon once again Resident in the Weyr East has been ever so busy turning same into a home for her and the Consort. It is uncanny how much biomass can be created by grass and weeds when neglected for the better part of eight mostly warm and damp months. A native guide was required simply to locate the front door and we prefer not to dwell overlong on the state of pastures, flowerbeds, and vegetable garden. A little tinkering with steadfast Li'l Red, a 14 hp riding mower, easily converted it into a bush hog and now the property has been reclaimed from the forest and is beginning to approach being once again a thing of beauty and a joy forever. The skunks and opossums were evicted from their snug dens under the greenhouse and all the hornets who had taken up residence in the chicken house were captured alive and FedExed to Osama bin Laden as a gaily-wrapped Ramadan gift. A BUSY DRAGON STILL HAS TOO MUCH TIME ON HER HANDS Time and then some to indulge in the consumption of vast quantities of comforting chocolate and fits of moroseness at being bereft of her Beloved Consort until February. The only consolation is knowing that said Consort is equally bereft and can't even jaunt into town for a few beers with his shipmates unless they are all excellent swimmers. The only thing worse than being alone at the Weyr is being alone away from the Weyr, surrounded by horizonless salt water. © 2001 by Pamela Matlack; all rights reserved. Pamela copes with life by asking herself, "What would a Dragon do?" and then doing it; when the dust settles, she chronicles the incident for the entertainment and edification of future generations. The Consort built her a lovely on-line Weyr, thedragonweyr, where she displays her sculpture, jewelry creations, heritage crafts, and the odd essay on the inequities of life in the hope (so far vain) of becoming the next overnight Internet gazillionaire. |
If the Air Is Thin, This Must Be Colorado A creative, semi-autobiographical Tale of Dragony Adventure in which Pamela (aka Chief Dragon) shares her struggles to breathe in Colorado, recounts the move back east, and copes without her beloved Consort, who has been shipped off to sea. by Pamela Matlack The hardest part about maintaining two residences, one near sea level and the other above 6,000 feet, is that one's sinuses tend to become agents provocateur and work actively for the imminent downfall of the corpus delectable. Then there is the business of oxygen being in short supply in most parts of Colorado. This is a little-known problem that the Colorado Tourist Board has been staunchly denying since their inception (for the express purpose of denying that there is a lack of oxygen in Colorado. See how nicely that works?). Between not being able to draw breath most of the time and what little desiccated air was able to filter through sinal discharge being mostly hydrogen, nitrogen, and dust, the Chief Dragon, when Resident in the Weyr West, was only capable of operating in safe mode. However she managed to make that count for a lot and, with a few trips back east to breath real air, stood the travail in pretty good shape. TREKKING EAST ON THREE CYLINDERS Things moved pretty fast from July on. The Consort was offered and accepted an opportunity to join the "DynCorp Navy" that allowed permanent removal to the Weyr East, awash in moist, oxygen-rich air. In rather short order clothing, cats and computers were crammed into a U-Haul and dragged across six entire states and the better part of two. After this Herculean task was accomplished it was discovered, during a routine check-up, that the Consortmobile was only firing on three cylinders. Testimony to the urgency felt by both Consort and Dragon to get their collective butts east, the sluggish performance of the vehicle was attributed to trailer weight and too much oxygen. A new set of plug wires later and all is hunky-dory. Alas, there is a small fly in the ointment. In order to become an eastcoaster the Consort had to agree to spend the next four months floating around in one of our finer oceans. This would not have been so bad were it not for a certain group of Arab terrorists now holed up in Afghanistan (but not for long, as the Chief Dragon is near to perfecting her cave-flaming technique and plans to put an end to their games for good and all.) A STUDY IN TIME PASSAGES OR IS IT FEBRUARY YET? It is well known to small children and anyone who has ever waited in a downpour for a bus, that the subjective speed at which time passes is inversely proportionate to how desperately one wishes it to pass. The Consort has been gone for three weeks but it feels like three years and so many Roman Emperors stole days from February to add to their own months that it disappeared entirely and will never happen again. In the meantime the Chief Dragon once again Resident in the Weyr East has been ever so busy turning same into a home for her and the Consort. It is uncanny how much biomass can be created by grass and weeds when neglected for the better part of eight mostly warm and damp months. A native guide was required simply to locate the front door and we prefer not to dwell overlong on the state of pastures, flowerbeds, and vegetable garden. A little tinkering with steadfast Li'l Red, a 14 hp riding mower, easily converted it into a bush hog and now the property has been reclaimed from the forest and is beginning to approach being once again a thing of beauty and a joy forever. The skunks and opossums were evicted from their snug dens under the greenhouse and all the hornets who had taken up residence in the chicken house were captured alive and FedExed to Osama bin Laden as a gaily-wrapped Ramadan gift. A BUSY DRAGON STILL HAS TOO MUCH TIME ON HER HANDS Time and then some to indulge in the consumption of vast quantities of comforting chocolate and fits of moroseness at being bereft of her Beloved Consort until February. The only consolation is knowing that said Consort is equally bereft and can't even jaunt into town for a few beers with his shipmates unless they are all excellent swimmers. The only thing worse than being alone at the Weyr is being alone away from the Weyr, surrounded by horizonless salt water. © 2001 by Pamela Matlack; all rights reserved. Pamela copes with life by asking herself, "What would a Dragon do?" and then doing it; when the dust settles, she chronicles the incident for the entertainment and edification of future generations. The Consort built her a lovely on-line Weyr, thedragonweyr, where she displays her sculpture, jewelry creations, heritage crafts, and the odd essay on the inequities of life in the hope (so far vain) of becoming the next overnight Internet gazillionaire. |
Generic Action Movie Review by Bill Klein I went to a movie the other night at the multiplex. It starts out with some guy getting killed and then there are these explosions. Anyway, then we see the Hero Guy and he gets this hot-looking babe for a new partner and you know they are going to wind up having sex later on in the movie because she acts like she can't stand him. Naturally, she is like in her early twenties and I read an article on him in People magazine where he just turned 70 and is taking Viagra and getting regular prostate checks but he's still sexy though. It seems that she has a personal stake in this because this same guy killed her brother or maybe it was her fiancé or even her sister. I didn't see that part because I was getting more popcorn and Raisinets for the human vacuum cleaner who was my date that evening, but nobody else in the movie finds that out until later on because if they had they would have disqualified her from the case as we all know that when you let emotions get in the way of you doing your job you are headed for trouble. Which of course is exactly what happens when she begins investigating on her own while the Hero Guy is trying to reestablish a relationship with his estranged teenaged daughter and he has to contend with his ex-wife who you can tell still loves him but couldn't take being a cop's wife and is now married to a man who is always there when she needs him but of course is about as charismatic and exciting as a Sears living room set but he is "safe." In between all this, we also get to meet their police captain boss who yells a lot and threatens them with suspensions and crossing-guard duty or such like, informants who look like they haven't bathed since the Carter administration, and second-tier Hot Babes playing barmaids and Hookers With Hearts Of Gold who all hint at former relationships with the Hero Guy. So anyway, to get back to the story, he and his daughter go on an outing and are just starting to bond when he gets the call that his partner, the Hot Babe, is missing and he knows exactly where to go because of a few obscure clues provided earlier in the movie that nobody else paid attention to or wrote down but he suddenly remembers and he has to cut the outing short and the daughter and the ex-wife of course are miffed and say the standard lines about how some things never change and so on and so forth The Hot Babe partner has screwed up and either tripped while being chased or discovered the whole operation and was captured from behind, you know the drill. Of course the bad guy can't be killed right away because if the Hero Guy kills him the Hot Babe will be plunged into some unspeakably horrible death but the Hero Guy manages to free her in a harrowing ordeal and leaves her to rub her sore ankle(s) while he gives chase and I'm wondering when the hell this is all going to end because the jumbo Coke I bought before the movie has begun to work its magic and I have to go to the bathroom really bad. They chase each other through a maze of surprise!- rafters and catwalks and such and there are bullets careening off metal and sending chunks of concrete and wood spraying just inches from each other's heads until finally the bad guy is trapped in a spot where there is nothing below him except a straight 200-foot drop to the floor of a warehouse- you DID know it was a warehouse didn't you?- which is full of pointy things like, say, church steeples or plastic icicles or something and the Hero Guy drills him with lead and he falls from the platform and gets perforated like a sheet of supermarket coupons. Hero and Hot Babe go back to her place and do it like rabbits. The End. So do I recommend this movie? Heck, why not? It's a good way to kill two hours with a date you really don't want to talk to anyway because you're just trying to get sex. Go to the 8:00 show so that means you don't get to the bar until 10:30 or 11 or so, that way you don't get too plastered to raise the old drawbridge if you get my drift. Besides, you're going to see this movie eventually anyway. It may have a different cast and a different title but it will still be "The edge-of-your-seat action thriller of the summer!" according to some two-bit hack who also writes the obituaries for the Dubuque Register or some similar cutting-edge publication. Rated R for the nudity, violence, sexual content and obscene language, all of which is used to try and cover up the lame plot and limp dialogue but isn't successful. Lots of bare breasts though, always a good thing. Critic's Rating: *** (out of five) © 2001 by Bill Klein; all rights reserved. Read another piece by Bill in the Naked Humorist Archives. Currently residing in Virginia, Bill Klein hasn't decided what he wants to be when he grows up. In the meantime, check out his new Web site: BillKleinOnline. Bill has contributed articles to Themestream, The Vines, WrittenByMe, and other various and sundry sites from which he is hoarding his sizeable remuneration in hopes of someday purchasing a Happy Meal. |
...the bad guy is trapped in a spot where there is nothing below him except a straight 200-foot drop to the floor of a warehouse...which is full of pointy things like, say, church steeples or plastic icicles... |
It is uncanny how much biomass can be created by grass and weeds when neglected for the better part of eight mostly warm and damp months. A native guide was required simply to locate the front door... |
