I'll give somebody a quarter if they've seen it and write me a review. I haven't had a chance to see it yet.

Well, at least we found the reruns of Maverick and Alf.  Not all is lost.

... is a woman's movie. 

That is all.

Discuss.

Horror?   Comedy?    Horrific Comedy?   I know it wasn't set up to be a side splitting laugh fest, but laugh I did for better or for worse.   I literally chuckled myself senseless at times within the first hour of the flick,  getting a wild kick out of the morbid sense of humor put on display by the writers and director.   However, all good things must come to an end.

Set in the city of Terminus, a massive signal is being transmitted throughout...   the T.V., the phone lines, the radio.  Anybody who hears or watches it for too long gets entranced by it,  leaving them brainwashed and turned into homicidal maniacs.  The power of the signal overwhelms them and then begins to control them.    One after another,  everywhere you turn,  like a serial killers' mecca.   Add this to a story about two lovers, Ben and Mya, intertwined with her jealous and ever suspicious husband Lewis,  who meets her Ben under awkward circumstances and rescue attempt amid blood emptying mindless savages.    In the meantime,  Mya is running around the city searching for Ben,  hoping to find him and leave the cursed city behind.

Scene after scene reveals more rapid fire,  sick yet twisted humor throughout each and every passing minute with whimsical interactions amongst complete strangers.   If they would have just made alot more scenes similar to those in the strangers' houses (which I'd highly recommend being, and disappointed that I wasn't jacked up on something for) I'd probably be giving the movie 4.5 bloody hatchets...    unfortunately for The Signal,   the rest of the movie happened instead.

The humor slowly fades away giving way to the harsh reality that,   yes...  this is another horror flick.   The hallucination inducing clips are still there,  along with the violent mood swings,  but the storyline viturally crashes near the end until its inevitable flatline.   Masked with crazed psychosis,  the ending lacks body and vibrance (something one requires with their hallucinations) leaving your ejecting your DVD with a loud yawn the second the credits start to roll.    I loved it...   but only most of it.    I'd highly recommend you renting it,  but make sure you rent a second movie with it.   For that it only gets 2.75 severed heads.

I could post anything in here, and no one would see it. 

LaLaLaLaLaLa...

Four score and seven years ago, our only fear was fear itself. 

If at first you don't succeed, it's because motorcycles don't have doors. 

The worms crawl in, the worms crawl out, the worms have a penny for the old guy. 

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was a dark and stormy night.

Call me Ishmael.  Then call me a cab.

I once shot an elephant in my pajamas.  C-c-c-can't we all just get along?

Well, I had to watch it.  I knew it would be a disappointment, and it was.  I hoped for better, but there we are.

Most remakes suck.  A few don't.  A very few.

Michael Caine was good, as usual, but he didn't have anything to work with.  Jude Law seemed lost.  Harold Pinter took a fabulous story, tried to "update" and tinker with it, and only managed to make a mess. 

The original film was terrific.  If anyone has not yet seen either, forget this forced remake and rent the original.  Caine and Olivier were both brilliant in the original, as was the story and the setting. 

I think there were only a couple reasons I wanted to see this movie. First, I hoped it would look great on BluRay. Second, it had a saber tooth tiger in it... what's not to like about that?

(note to self: please up your standards!)

Perhaps I wanted too badly to actually like this movie, but in the end I reflected on it and felt this... does Hollywood REALLY write new scripts with each movie? Or does it recycle crap from other movies and change the special effects. Is there a blockbuster template out there somewhere that they're hiding from us?

I felt this Apocolypto flashback slowly coming over me, although it wasn't a happy flashback. Definitely not as good as the first time I swallowed that style of movie. Perhaps it was the week dialogue, the ho-hum story-line or the Jurassic Park style (and partially cheesy) special effects, but something caused this movie to just not do it for me. Probably great for your everyday Yagahli tribesman, desperate for entertainment because you just melted from the ice age... this might just do it for you then.

I'm going to give this of 10....
but on a percentage scale...
yeah... 10%

(that means 10 out of 100... equivalent to 1 out of 10... you silly Yagahli Neanderthals!)

The week took a sad turn when Cyd Charisse passed away at the age of 86. She was a great dancer with gorgeous legs--a former ballerina who found her fame in Hollywood, the prime of her career spanning primarily from the early 1940's through the late 1950's. Cyd, who was born Tula Ellice Finklea, paired with both Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly in such movies as Brigadoon, Singin' in the Rain, Silk Stockings, and The Band Wagon.

Here are a few clips of some of her dance scenes...

...with Fred Astaire in The Band Wagon:

...and Gene Kelly in Singin' in the Rain: 

...and as a bonus, here's a clip of Cyd in Silk Stockings:

Fathers Day, long day with the kids, followed with a long afternoon with parents, grandparents, in-laws and outlaws... only to come home to road construction blocking off my driveway, forcing me to park who knows how many blocks away, carrying a sleeping baby, pushing along a grumpy 6 year old and hoping my wife doesn't stagger her tipsy butt into a trench... only to come home and have the house smell like cat piss, my clothes I'd planned for work had not been washed, and then to come to the realization that I was COMPLETELY OUT OF BEER!! Stress, stress, stress...

Lucky for me I found the perfect stress reliever!

Rambo (that and a back-up flask of Captain Morgan w/coke) was just what I expected it to be, only more. I was looking to rent a movie with little dialogue, senseless violence, gratuitous sex... but 2 out of 3 wasn't bad for the day. All I had to read was the tagline: "Heroes Never Die... They Just Reload!"

I will warn you... the violence is extreme. It truly does show what the weapons of today can do to a human body. It's not for the faint of heart.

4 out of 5 Medals of Honor

Horror? Thriller? Mystery? Drama? In a quick reflection of Untraceable I find it quite difficult to choose just which genre this movie should be classified under. The best description one can really give is to say that it follows the path in the spirit and mindset of Se7en. Untraceable gives the viewer that same surreal feel, mixed with a bit of creepiness and technology.

The story is told from the eyes of FBI Special Agent Jennifer Marsh (Diane Lane) of the FBI's cybercrime unit, spending most of her days reeling in hackers, thieves and predators. When a tip comes across her desk to check out a site called www.killwithme.com, she clicks on to investigate... in which the horror begins.

The downward spiral of morality sucks you in as the site begins to broadcast murder after bloody, gruesome murder, all to which the killer increases the speed of the killing to coincide with the number of people who log into the site to watch the gore unfold. Don't say I didn't warn you.

3.75 stars (4 from me.... 3 1/2 from the wife... law of averages rules)
3.00 stars from avg.viewers
2.50 stars from the critics