Da Dominion: Home of DOMINIONCAST!

I hate marketing because it targets the superficial with flashy imagery and gets people to see a movie at least once. Someone looses one hour and thirty-two minutes, but that’s not an atrocity. What sucks is the number of people they get to spend just $15, which grows into millions if not billions of dollars that somehow communicates this is a good piece.

Actually, that’s idealistic. The mountain of money says, “People like these images, so lets sell them more no matter what thin narrative links them.” And so they do with gusto.

I thought Underworld was okay. Not an exemplar of the action genre, nor bad enough for me to advocate forced castration for writer/director Len Wiseman with a glowing hot Garden Weasel. The sequel was okay mainly cause Beckinsale was more naked in it and it continued an interesting story about the ancient Lycan/Vamp war - pitting our heroes against the first Vampire and Werewolf.

Underworld 3 is a prequel that fleshes out an expositional flashback in the first movie. If you knew this going in I really hoped you’d have told me before I went … Now I hate you.

Rhona Mitra, Beckinsale understudy, has a few combat scenes but without much of the eye-popping affects that the original established. In her defense, she wasn’t out of place with the other cast. Michael Sheen, playing the Lycan leader Lucian, didn’t get an Oscar nod for Frost/Nixon because of his involvement with this installment, if not this series, I‘m convinced.

When you do a prequel the aim is - or fucking should be - to add depth to established characters, especially since you know the gist of how things are going to go down. It’s one of the few successes of the Star Wars prequels. We learn more about Vader - though we make not like Whiney McSand pants. It was revealed in the original that Victor kills Sonja for getting knocked up by Lucian, whom then goes ape shit and frees the Lycans. This flick added nothing much more to the back-story Underworld gave us.

The big Black dude Lycan NEEDS an explanation for what he’s doing in Dark Ages Europe. The love between Sonja and Lucian needs to be clear and real enough to explain why they’d risk so much besides Full Moon Fever. Victor, master of the Vampires, is an asshole arrogant enough to beat the shit out his Lycan slaves tasked with guarding them while they slept during the day … when the moon is full? Brilliant.

The special effects were good but nothing we’ve never seen and it’s a let down made especially potent since really THIS IS THE ONLY REASON TO SEE THIS FLICK! Werewolves are much stronger than Vampires, but Vampires are faster and can use smarter tactics - you’d think. The climax was just werewolves jump the walls and chow down on Vampire.

Don’t rent this. Wait until you get insomnia and catch it on cable by accident three years from now. Assuming you aren’t pissed off by the shit storm Underworld 4 was when you saw it in the future … or remember me saying so here … linked to my review of it … that will be … then?

24 kicks ass, has won Emmys for those buttocks booted, and despite being on hiatus - due to whiney writers - is back as good as ever for the seventh season to cram more shoe into rectum. Ironically, this action is the one interrogation technique Jack “bane of Chuck Norris” Bauer won’t do.

Still, there are some of you that don’t watch it yet still possesses average or above mental faculties, I.e. aren’t stupid - to make it plain for those just making it to average level. Here are twenty-four reasons to watch 24.

24. There’s nothing remotely as good on TV at Monday 9 pm, unless you’re a girl or wish you were born one.

23. No other show creates tension as well. Everything has a deadline that if it isn’t met will severely fuck up lots of people. There’s even deadline in deadlines. The FBI is coming so the Terrorists must force the Sangala President out of his safe room before he dies making the undercover good guys into bad guys. Thank god for commercials.

22. Keifer Sutherland is aging pretty well.

21. There are few over arching mysteries, unlike Lost. The main question is how is Jack going to pull this off and after the commercial break - in which the story is going on camera - the answer comes. It’s reply, AWESOMENESS.

20. The writers of 24 are visionaries. Season 1 had a cool ass Black president, and not a globetrotting light skinned one either, good old Mississippi black. This season, Madame President Taylor is the chief, which forecasts the Hill-Dawg striking back. Relax; it’s fiction.

19. Main characters die when you least expect it, and stay dead. The stakes are high like the real world.

18. Tony Almeida is back from the dead!

17. As reasons 18 & 19 show, you can’t predict where the story will go but guaranteed things will get worse.

16. Issues are ripped from the headlines. Bauer is under subpoena to testify for all his torturing in the past given the new administration, but a crisis brings him back to the field to avert disaster … and torture some more.

15. “Look! I’m going to shoot you. Please, go along with it; I’ve got a plan” Who the hell else could pull that line off?

14. Actions have real consequences measured in time and implications carried to other parts of the overall plot. There’s a delay to dump a body, so the terrorists can‘t get their hostage and need to crash a plain to show they‘re still a threat, now we wonder will the lady President back down and put more trust in her adviser whom is in league with the terrorists?

13. If you tie someone up with duct tape and taunt them, they can bite out your throat and use your blood to soften the tape to escape. It’s a fact.

12. Bauer makes a better bad guy than the bad guys!

11. Geeks are given a place of respect without drowning us in overly technical jargon. We can track the movements of the bodyguards by their cell phones and overlay it to the building plans. Who cares how?!

10. Watching 24 has been shown to correlate with virility and coolness.

9. Being on broadcast TV, it’s free to watch and is well worth the cost of a DTV conversion box.

8. Former President Clinton when interviewed regarding matters of national policy has referenced examples from 24 twice, and he’s a Rhodes scholar!

7. Name another show that detonated a nuclear bomb in L.A. … I’m waiting … thought not!

6. The previous 6 seasons are on DVD and it’s winter. Take some unused vacation and you can catch up. In this economic climate, I’m sure your supervisor wouldn’t mind.

5. The clean-cut character Sam Hillenger of the FBI impersonated his boss to get his wife to safety, but is also cheating on her. Yet, he’s still up to something and I‘m dying to see what.

4. Janeane Garafalo is an FBI tech specialist that will no doubt match Hack Fu with Chloe from the disbanded Counter Terrorist Unit. Catfight! Wouldn’t that be better than watching them mud wrestle?

3. Frequent Trek actor Tony Todd is playing the genocidal African dictator General Juma. He’s great in everything.

2. If Tony’s back, they may bring back Michelle Dessler-Almeida. Trust me, she does more than seductively climbing on bookshelves. I doubt it, but one can hope.

1. Jack Bauer is the shit.

Ed Zwick’s Defiance is an action/drama with smidgen of schmaltz (a word from Yiddish meaning “chick flick romantic bullshit” - not literally). At the same time, it’s definitely not an all out action flick. At no time does Dan Craig mug for the camera, “Bielski. Tuvia Bielski” before flying down a zip line one-handed blasting Nazi‘s with a Tommy gun in the other and humming Havah Nagilah. If he did I’d be rooting for the Germans - and I HATE rooting for the Germans.

Glory. Legends of the Fall. Courage under Fire. The Siege. Zwick knows his stuff and adds another to this impressive portfolio. Despite strong allusions to the story of Moses, this is a very gritty film without traditional heroes but capturing the reality of men and women just doing their best in a fucked up situation. They steal. They hook up for warmth and to fend off despair - quickly too. Irving didn’t your wife and kid just die a few scenes back? They eat dogs and horses, kosher - maybe not, but ain‘t no manna from the sky for this tribe. Interspersed through are glimpses of normal life, especially romance, which doesn’t quite undermine the intensity but does NOT help it. They kill, although this last part is by far the easiest when your enemy is committing atrocities and means to wipe you off the Earth, and has the ability. A major theme is the formation of community amidst the state of nature. The one family, the foundation of this a micro-society, is broken by it’s grief.

Tuvia and Zus are the eldest brothers of the Bielski family. Being smugglers and bootleggers they know to evade their hunters and in doing so pick up refuges looking for safety under their protection. Tuvia is the most conscientious and is played exceedingly well by Daniel Craig. He wishes to take in everyone, accepting the hardships of leadership. Liev Schreiber plays Zus, the brother that simply wants to fight back in eye for an eye fashion. Of course there’s a schism, even a Romulus/Remus fight, leaving Tuvai to effectively serve as savior to his people. Most of the film focuses on this wilderness community as it goes through its first winter. There is dissention in the ranks counter balanced by a traditional wedding, tragedy and joy. In the end, Zus and Tuvia reconcile and we’re told they survived with 1200 people.

Defiance is a good movie, but not a great one. Poignancy was lacking since the biggest threat to this Jewish colony were it’s own members mostly. It wasn’t until the end that the Germans even showed up to try to kill them and the film reverts into an action flick with some pointless heroics, with the cavalry coming in the nick of time. Kind of doesn’t do the struggle justice, but definitely watch-able.

The New Years brings good news: Fantasy Action has returned to TV!

Stop! I didn’t mean the Spice Channel - or other spank channels for that matter. I mean by Fantasy that genre of fiction that infuses it’s plot, theme or setting with the supernatural unfettered by advanced technology (Sci-Fi) or the macabre (read “muh-COBB-bruh” as in Horror). Lord of the Rings type shit, for the mundane minded.

The program is actually the aforementioned Legend of the Seeker, which was surveyed for excellence in its premiere early November. Seven episodes into its first season, it has bound over several pitfalls of past TV sword and sorcery predecessors to grasp the Obsidian Ring of Dominion Approval. Why not brass ring? It’s clichéd. Obsidian is hard, black, smooth and sharp - like our humor. Brass is more expensive than the brittle volcanic glass, we can’t afford it - but you can! Check our store for the Obsidian Chakram of Approval ™ coming soon! WARNING: chakram is too sharp to be held with human hands. Side effects include loss of fingers, acute pain in the fingerless hand and bleeding from the hands.

Legend of the Seeker, from the producers of Hercules and Xena, based on the Sword of Truth novel series by Terry Goodkind, is a worthy representative of both sets of artist. The first temptation it refused was camera winking. There were a lot of times in Herc and Xena when the comic relief in effect said, “this is just fun fantasy myth.” A lonely Cyclops is angry cause he hasn’t had a date in centuries. I can relate to that shit! Har har hee.

Seeker has avoided a lot of this disbelief strain by not doing monster o’ the week. The central conflict is rightfully focused on Richard Cypher being the first True Seeker in hundreds of years. One day he’s chopping wood shirtless, as a young farmer’s son is expected to do when you’re trying to rope a decent number of female viewers - by the way, writing a blog shirtless doesn’t have the same effect - now he’s the savior of the world with everybody expecting big things of him. His Obi-Wan, the wizard Zeddicus Zu’l Zorander (alliterative name: + 50 pts), is always harping on how he has to become this mythical revolutionary heroic warrior leader in a way that imparts gravity of destiny more concretely than “here’s a light saber, let’s go to Alderaan”. They must overthrow the evilly named Darken Rahl, tyrant of the West, East, Mid, left, and corner adjacent lands of New Zealand - or whatever world the Big Kiwi is meant to model.

On the action front, they’ve kept with the Pose Fu to great effect. Another annoying Fantasy trope they’ve dodged is the cartoon violence. There’s no breaking vase over bad guy’s head or disarming to take them out of the fight. They successfully walk the safe side of the gore line, but the Sword of Truth does cleave many a baddy. Zeddicus burns evil men, not CG monsters, to death with his spells. Specifically, two dagger wielding Kahlan the Confessor whirls like dervish with cuts to the joints, neck and face that leave no doubt whether or not minion #12 survives - unless she‘s cutting extra breathing hole, nah. With the camera safely behind the back of her foes the gore guard is preserved without being lame.

Destiny ain’t easy. They’ve covered Richard having a shot at a normal life in the episode Identity and faced with the temptation of magic abuse in Elixir. Cypher has no time for the fancies of a young lad, and is tragically forced to adventure with Kahlan - played by the pretty Bridget Regan - another specially gifted person with the power to know the hearts of men, steal their wills, wear low cut corsets and bathe in rivers when the Seeker shouldn’t be distracted. Even sadder, she’s not even his sister! Their attraction has developed predictably, but besides inherent problems of sheathing your sword in your ally’s scabbard - her powers make her dangerously untouchable. So it’s not just another “when is Xena gonna get down and lez-out all up in Gabriel” cock tease schtick.

I plan to check out Goodkind’s Sword of Truth once I’m done with a couple of more Dresden Files novels. If the show is this good the books must be even better.

Despite the overblown gimmicky action ride - and practice session for Crank - that was Transporter 2, I decided to give the franchise a new break by seeing Transporter 3: There in 30 seconds, or I’ll kick your ass! Not the actual tagline, yet apparently one of Frank Martin’s (Jason Statham) many unspoken rules. Rule one: touch my suit and I’ll kill you with it. That’s the only spoiler I’ll be giving, read on.

The first in the series, aptly named Transporter because putting the number one in the title would be a bit presumptuous, was just excellent. We never see the mercenary wheelman - let alone one that ’s machine accurate and by book played to cool effect. From 30-year Hong Kong veteran director Corey Yuen, you be surprised … if you’d heard of him before, unlike me. His other movies read like a list of entrees on the menu of China Star Number One Golden Egg Roll Palace, but are harshly distinct single words when translated, like The Doctor, Bartender and Cameo. Shu Qi was a sexy handful Martin could barely mange with a heart of gold and mouth of lies (here name too, Lai) with visible chemistry.

The fight choreography was Rapid Fu done well and set in interesting scenes. An oiled up dude skating around beating ass was great, along with the acrobatics of the bus scene. This action inspired that in Transporter 2, which evidently Louis Leterrier took as a challenge to one up. He fuck’in 7 upped it! The bomb on the bottom of the car was knocked off with the crane? Jumping parking structure buildings? The sex kitten with twin Uzi’s that preferred to fight in her underwear and always ended up wet? Was Roger Moore in this, or Pierce Brosnan? It blew its action load early leaving us with a sappy story - Martin working out some paternal issues - and progressively more ridiculous stunts. Odd for Leterrier, since his Jet Li movie Unleashed - in which the actor actually, you know, acted - and his take on The Incredible Hulk this year were very good flicks. Too much brandy in his crepes perhaps.

The third one isn’t quite as good as the first but is easily better than part deux. Oliver Megaton didn’t bomb on this one by keeping it simple - for us stupids. Not that the first one was deep but there was a bit of complexity with what the real stakes were with Lai lying so much. The stakes were set out in the beginning and you forget them by action sequence two. Some of the camera usage was beginning to scare me, getting a bit Tony Scott in some scenes, but was well done if a bit on the choppy side of Rapid Fu. The sequences were well paced through and built well to a crescendo at the climax. Overtop, hell yeah. The key is get crazy near the end though. Never did it get ridiculous as in the previous incarnation.

Love interest 2 - let’s not count the kid in the first sequel - is damsel in distress Valentina (yeah, that’s the sexist pic she has), whom doesn’t compare to Shu Qi in looks or acting. Kind of like a Ukrainian girl next door that didn’t have that great between the legs camera shot that the Asian actress could pull off (if I could find the clip I’d link it, it’s after they swim from his burning house) but perceptive enough to get Frank minimalist lifestyle - insightful, I guess. François Berléand appears again as Martin’s only friend the French police inspector and actually does some detective work on his own to get to the bottom of things.

Overall a nice change of pace from the FX budget = good action flick paradigm. Transport yourself to the movies to check it out in 30 minutes, or get choked out with suit sleeves sucka!