My Weekly TNA Catch-up, Impact 26th Feb 09 reviewed

Brief review of last weeks show in case you missed it then we have a match!

Knockout Tag Match - The Beautiful People (with Cute Kip) vs Madison Rayne & Taylor Wilde. Prior to this match Rayne had no real affiliations with either faces or heels. Rayne bumped and sold well after Sky & Love beat her down when Kip had distracted Wilde away from the apron leaving Rayne unable to tag out. Love sold a nice spinning backbreaker off Wilde & Rayne slapping Wilde wasn't really much of a swerve which allowed Sky to take the win in 5 minutes.

Tag Team Championship - Beer Money vs The Rock & Rave Infection. In another "Off the wagon" challenge where if the challengers lose whoever is pinned leaves TNA we already knew the outcome when Jimmy Rave & Lance Rock were introduced as it'd been announced that Lance was leaving to work in Japan in the same week that Petey Williams announced his departure from TNA. This match is actually quite a good idea considering how quickly they had to come up with it and allows Beer Money to appear to defend their titles and gives talent like Petey & Lance valid reasons to be leaving TNA.

Rave got a nice start to this match & worked Beer Money well but also bumping and selling well for Beer Moneys turn around. Rock didn't really get any offensive at all and Roode took the pin after Storm clocked Rock with the title belt as Jaqueline had the ref distracted. Not a very good match at all and not the way I would have wanted to go out if I'd been Rock, match lasted 4:31. Rock had a so so run in TNA, he never really got a brilliant run in singles or tag (despite holding the tag titles twice early in his career) and was just short of having worked for 5 years in TNA.

Abyss and "Dr Stevie" video segment. I guess Stevie is eventually going to appear ringside with Abyss in a valet/manager role then? Hardcore 101 with Mick Foley. The MEM come out to discuss their issues with Sting, Jeff Jarrett throws in his views too. West & Tenay argue, West shoots on Tenay who is left on his own. Sojourner Bolt & Rhaka Khan come out to the ring calling Awesome Kong & Raisha Saeed out.

Knockout Tag Match - Sojourner Bolt & Rhaka Khan vs Awesome Kong & Raisha Saeed. Bolt & Saeed kicked this off, I guess we were supposed to think this match was a shoot and they came up with it on the fly? What kind of marks do they take us for? Bolt kicked it off with Saeed with Khan coming in not long after, Saeed has been the best seller for Khan I have seen to date (unless Khan has vastly improved in a very short time) however Bolts little run with Saeed (after Khan tagged out) didn't look very impressive and I was struggling to tell if Saeed wasn't selling or Bolt wasn't delivering. Bolt took the eventual win off a backslide on Saeed but I had the feeling it wasn't done off a big finisher as either Saeed had trust issues or Bolt couldn't cut it. Match lasted 5:11.

X Division Championship 4 Way Ladder Match - Consequences Creed vs Chris Sabin vs Jay Lethal vs Alex Shelley. I assume they did the disjointed introductions to play down the fact this was tagteam versus tagteam. The only rule here is whoever climbs the ladder and gets the belt wins the title. Not much in the way of action until after the usual badly timed commercial break with Sabins springboard spinning suplex of Lethal onto a ladder, Sabin also took a nice backsplash into a ladder and Shelley took the belt and retained his title after hitting Sliced Bread on Lethal. Not a great match or good finish, match lasted 5:07. I'm not sure if Suicide was Kaz or Chris Daniels (guessing it was Daniels as he looked smaller and more compact).

Jeff Jarrett comes out for the contract signing between Sting & Kurt Angle to settle the MEM issues having them contest the title at the upcoming Destination X PPV. Angle brings Nash, Booker & Steiner with him. Angle signs the contract & jumps Jarrett with Mick Foley running down to make the save with Angle jumping Foley when his back is turned leaving Sting to come down and make another save beaning Angle with the baseball bat and then signs the contract.

Summary - we had 4 actual matches that lasted 19:49 in a show that lasted for 1:28:27 so 31:33 spent in commercials which is longer than was spent on actual in ring action so yet again another week where less than 1 quarter of show comprised of actual wrestling and there was more time spent in commercial breaks than in the ring having matches. TNA really have to put a stop to this trend by either having longer matches or more matches per show, its about time EVERY show had a bare minimum of 6 matches each with a minimum duration of 10 minutes. If they can't manage this then Jeff Jarrett should just come out to the middle of the ring, apologise to all TNA fans and state the promotion just can't cut it any more or doesn't have the balls to try and be different from WWE and that he's calling an end to TNA. I'd rather have no TNA at all than a half assed attempt Jeff.

My Weekly TNA Catch-up, Impact 19th Feb 09 reviewed

Show opens with Kurt Angle coming out to yack on the mic.

No Holds Barred Street Fight - The Motor City Machine Guns vs Lethal Consequences. Neither team are particularly hardcore in their wrestling style and none of the 4 guys are particularly known for being a hardcore wrestling or preferring the hardcore style of match so it makes this one a little bit difficult to swallow as legit.

The middle and left side cameramen managed to f**k up and no-sell Sabins missile dropkick into the chair into Lethals head (why didn't they stick with the right hand camera for an amazing sell), Sabins suicide dive that hit the chair was well sold and at least the director was on the right camera for that.

Creeds top rope legdrop into the chair on Shelley looked awful (and Shelley looked like an utter twat trying to sell it after the fact) but Sabin sold a great looking Lethal Combination into the chair. Lethals backdrop onto the ladder was shades of The Briscoes in ROH (so TNA are stealing their ideas as well too?) but Shelley took the eventual win off Creed after Sabin beaned him with Shelleys title belt. It was a p**s poor finish (I assume they had no clue how to finish) and the match lasted 6 minutes.

Webography featuring Chris Sabin, Beer Money come out to make a challenge, was James Storm shooting on Kaz & Chris Daniels with his comment about masks? Webography featuring Robert Roode. Another "therapy" session with Abyss and "Dr Stevie".

6 man Tag Match - Brutus Magnus, Sheik Abdul Bashir & Matt Morgan vs Shane Sewell & LAX. I guess this means Brutus Magnus is officially a heel as he's working on an all heel team here. It was nice to see Sewell here, selling The Carbon Footprint well off Morgan & taking some decent bumps too. Sewell took the eventual win off a big elbow on Bashir in 4:04.

Harcore History 101 with Mick Foley. They still haven't fixed that backwards bit of tape in Stings section of the MEM video package, its STILL raining upside down.

Angelina Love (With Cute Kip & Velvet Sky) vs Taylor Wilde (with Roxxi & "The Govenor", WCW Queen Of Scream Daffney who is way overdue to drop this gimmick & reveal her true identity). Love tried to jump Wilde before the bell but Wilde is quicker and stronger and was soon on top here, Wilde put together a nice series of moves before her rather scrappy dropkick spoilt them.

After a spot of expected interference Ref Rudy Charles sent Cute Kip back to the locker room leaving Love to fight her way back into the ring & take control. Wilde sold a decent enough clothesline although Loves kneelift left a lot to be desired. Love sold a decent looking tilt-a-whirl backbreaker off Wilde but Wilde took the win off a Schoolboy roll-up, a VERY weak finish to a generally decent but much too short match that lasted 4:16.

Rough Cut segment on The Ultimate X match.

Tag Team Championship & "Off The Wagon" challenge. Petey Williams & Eric Young vs Beer Money. Clearly someone in TNA doesn't know their history very well, Jim Cornette put Team Canada in a match a long time ago and if they lost they were forbidden to ever reform in ANY incarnation. The rules here are simple, whoever gets pinned has to leave TNA forever. As Petey Williams was already known to have signed a contract elsewhere we already knew the outcome of this before the bell.

Williams & Storm kicked this one off, I assume Storms thinking was Eric & Petey knew all of Roodes moves from his Team Canada days so he was the one unknown factor in the equation here. Young & Williams were on top losing their hold just before one of TNA's now infamous badly timed commercial breaks, Young was on the wrong end of a triple team from Beer Money and in for a long time with nothing happening before hitting an awful looking kneelift on Roode.

Williams was tagged in after Young endured more doubleteaming and I was loving Williams bulldogging Roode into Storm, his assisted DDT looked good as did his hurricanrana on Storm from the apron. It was very sad we didn't get to see a final Canadian Destroyer but Roode took the win after Storm hit the superkick, Petey Williams didn't have a great TNA swansong but it was a fairly decent match that lasted 8:17. I will be sad to see Petey Williams go as he has given a lot to TNA.

Webography featuring James Storm.

Empty Arena Match - Sting vs Kurt Angle. I'm not really sure if theres much point calling this match as there was no referee so there was never going to be a winner or loser, technically its not a match at all as with no ref and no starting bell it really doesn't qualify. The main fight itself lasted for 4:11 before Angle started begging for his life then Nash & Steiner broke it up briefly (and it was quite clearly scripted though not rehearsed as you could see Steiner mouthing Nash's lines) but Angle spitting into Stings face wasn't going to help and it took the MEM security guys to keep them apart. Hopefully after 1 final match between Sting & Angle this Main Event Mafia/Respect storyline will finally be over and done.

Summary

We had 4 actual matches and a non-match which if you also include its running time meant we had total time spent actually wrestling this week of 26:48 in a show that was on air for 1:29:56 so 31:04 was spent in commercials, longer than the amount of time spent actually wrestling. If TNA aren't careful and don't start to devote more time to actual in ring wrestling they are going to lose all their fans. Their going to be defecting to ROH in their hordes I predict.

Movie Review - Day Of The Dead 2 - Contagium

The reason this is an "Of The Dead" movie is because Taurus (the company who made) owned the rights to the name Day Of The Dead and were allowed to use it however they wished, this was nothing to do with George Romero at all. The film is very gorey, but decidedly low budget looking.

Starting out in 1968, Ravenside Military Installation in Pennslyvania (according to the fairly helpful graphic but the sign above the main door is more helpful & reads Ravenside Military Hospital) in the middle of some sort of emergency from the alarms and frantic running around. We get a warning (translated from Russian, clearly a soldier who'd defected to return something the Russians had stolen) and in the chaos someone steals what had been returned.

We see some of the cheapest looking CGI jeeps and helicopters I've ever encountered and we see exactly what kind of response the Military have sent, the type that results in deadly force with no questions asked. Seemingly their problem is easily solved and the zombies outside obviously went to the Romero School of Acting judging by their loping gait.

Our thief hears the military policy over their radios (By the way, the order "Shoot to kill" is NEVER issued, when you open fire you only ever do it for 1 reason) and there are 2 goofs (the "dead" nurse on the ground who blinks & the sniper upstairs who needs 2 shots to kill someone) as our thief finally succumbs to the disease and is killed, losing his ill gotten booty.

Flash forward (the graphic gets around dating the movie exactly by reading "Five Days Ago") and we meet a group of men, one of whom discovers the long dead thiefs booty in what is now Ravenside Memorial Hospital. Funnily enough they live in the Romero Ward and its fairly clear this is some sort of Mental Institution.

We gradually start to find out who are staff and who are patients (its not immediately obvious before they enter the hospital) and get a rough idea of what kind group dynamic they have and what kind of relationships exist. The disease is unleashed again and the 1st signs start to manifest after the patients are returned to their beds and rooms. Dr Donwynn researches on the internet and the patients seemingly start to hallucinate.

The following day (4 days ago) and more signs of infection start to manifest in the form of extremely low budget make-up effects (using PVA glue to simulate peeling skin) and we discover there is some sort of connection between all of the infected as they all experience the same feeling as Emma in her restraints. Their symptoms worsen (however none of them seem to question the fact their vomiting up blood & bile? I know their supposed to be mental patients but most of them seemed quite lucid before getting infected) and chaos seems to be ensuing at the hospital and getting worse rapidly.

When Donwynn is asked where they got sick and Dr Heller (the guy in charge) calls it "the DeLuca ravine" its extremely clear Heller knows more than he is letting on about the past of Ravenside. Isaac (one of the patients) discovers he no longer bleeds (so he is already dead then) as Heller considers contacting the military but changes his mind and imposes a quarantine, issues weapons and authorises the use of deadly force.

His final order of "aim for the head" proves he knows more than he is telling anyone else and Donwynn finds out exactly what was in the vial and what it does. It appears Donwynn has a connection with all the infected and Marshall the nurse who attacked Emma is shown to be more infected than any of those who were exposed to the vial. A guard is shot & killed and the infected male patients argue as Heller shows us how bad Marshall looks.

The following day (3 days ago) and after a minor scuffle one of the patients gets hold of a gun and it is pretty weird that they are letting the obviously infected Donwynn interact with uninfected staff & patients. Marshall breaks loose and eats Heller as Emma is released & Isaac is shot & Marshall gives us the 1st scare of the movie which is awesome even if it is totally expected. Donwynns informant Jerry confirms the infected are dead and tells us about the origin of the vials and we get to see what caused the original outbreak from the start of the movie.

Theres the super goof of the guard losing the magazine from his pistol as he fires at Marshall and as the cure is about to be revealed the patients fall into a feeding frenzy on Jerry.

The following day (2 days ago) Heller is now undead, Donwynn discovers how much Heller knew and patients Boris, Sam & Jackie appear to have physically changed after eating Jerry. The cure is seemingly destroyed by Vicky, a junkie looking for a fix and Emma has gone from just pregnant to full term in 3 days as Isaac finds his own solution to being undead.

The following day (yesterday) and the news reports the dead walking and attacking the living in a very open and extremely weak non-ending. I say non-ending as there is no real conclusion, no idea of what happened to Emma and her pregnancy. I assume this was left open to further explore the franchise at a later date.

Movie Review - Project ALF

ALF or Alien Life Form was an American 80's sitcom about a wise cracking cat eating friendly Alien who crash landed on Earth and spent his time hiding with the Tanner family trying to avoid the US Government and also trying to eat their cat Lucky. His real name was Gordon Shumway and he came from a planet called Melmac. This movie was a sequal to the final episode of the TV series and the Tanner family do not feature in it.

The movie starts at Edmonds Air Force Base with a meeting of military top brass discussing Project ALF which is classified Top Secret. We meet Colonel Gilbert Milfoil (Martin Sheen) who suggests the elimination of Alf however his junior subordinates disagree and wish to keep him for analysis or even release.

The tv series is briefly referenced and the Tanners are written out by stating they live under the Witness Protection System in Iceland, it is also explained Melmac exploded whilst Alf was in space. The panel review tapes of tests on Alf conducted by Dr Warner (Ed Begley Jr) and his numerous replacements.

We discover Alf is living in luxury with his "jailers" at his beck & call and the panel decides to cease all testing on Alf. We discover what Milfoils beef is with Aliens in general and that his is a mission based solely on revenge.

Two of his more benevolent testers Dr. Rick Mullican & Dr. Melissa Hill break Alf out (and in a nice goof also get the number of Alf's stomachs wrong when Mullican says "6 of his 7 stomachs must be full" as according to the tv show Alf has 8 stomachs) and Mullican does a pretty passible impression of Alf.

They rest up at a motel and Alf escapes (via the bathroom window) when someone complains about the noise he was making. Alf calls the base to ask to get hold of his money and then mistakes a strip joint for a cafe. Alf also manages to invent the entire basis for the show "My Name Is Earl" whilst trying to hustle the hotel clerk for a replacement vehicle.

Milfoil discovers Alfs abscence and we discover why Alf doesn't like Carl Sagan. Hill takes them to meet Dr. Moyers (Miguel Ferrer who I recognised from Robocop and always seems to be typecast as a bad guy) who is a former NASA employee now in disgrace for wanting reveal the existance of Aliens. Moyers reveals his plan is to reveal Alf to the world and both Mullicans and Alfs comments about ALF dolls in stores are very funny indeed.

Using Moyers computer Mullican discovers Moyers wants to sell Alf to the highest bidder. Mullican flees and is found by Milfoil as Hill discovers Moyers true intent about Alf and Mullican cuts a deal with Milfoil to find Alf. Alf detects the change in mood towards him from Moyers and locks himself in Moyers bathroom to avoid going on Global TV. Milfoil prevents the broadcast & Alf then Mullican tricks Milfoil into incriminating himself on camera (Its quite funny that Sheen hums "Hail to the Chief" as he had no clue at that time he would actually play The President on The West Wing).

Milfoil is exposed and the original military panel promote Hill & Mullican, appointing Alf as an Embassador to Earth. It's a pretty weak and very open ending which left me wondering if they were going to explore the Alf TV or movie franchise further but this never came to fruition.

My Weekly TNA Catch-up, Impact 12th Feb 09 reviewed

After a quick catch-up about the Against All Odds PPV the show opens with miracle of miracles an ACTUAL MATCH!

Tag Match - Kurt Angle & Sting vs Team 3D. This pretty much the rubber match from the PPV main event. Angle had a couple of stitches above his eye where he'd cut his eyebrow open after bumping heads with Sting in the PPV so I wondered if they were going to use that injury or not. Angle & Brother Ray kicked this off and Sting offered to tag in a few times with Angle just blanking him with Angle only tagging out after recieving the Wassup from Team 3D.

Sting & Angle had a set to at ringside which took Booker T & Steiner to break it up, after a badly timed commercial break we returned with Sting having the upper hand on Ray in the ring and the rest of the MEM at ringside. Sting tried to tag Angle who just jumped off the apron and Steiner had to get him back not just once but a 2nd and 3rd time.

We had an almost ref bump (I'm not sure if Slick Johnson was no selling or hadn't been warned they were going to do it so decided not to go with it) and Devon made the worlds worst kneelift on Sting which he didn't exactly go out of his way to try and sell. Not long after Devon hit the worlds lightest clothesline (camera position didn't exactly help on the sell there either), Angle sidestepped a 4th tag only for Sting to tag and bring him in the hard way, combined with a shove from Sting this allowed Devon to take the win off an easy Schoolboy rollup in 7:06. Steiner & Nash had to drag Sting & Angle apart and Angle vented his spleen on the mic which brings out Jeff Jarrett to cool his jets.

A whole truckload of time was wasted talking and in interviews & backstage segments.

No DQ Head dress on a pole match - Scott Steiner vs Petey Williams. It seems like Russo still has his filthy fingers well and truly clenched around the neck of TNA Creative then? Basically the rules are whoever takes the head dress off the pole gets to continue using it in their image and that there must be a winner. Clearly the head dress on the pole was Peteys as he was the one who came to the ring not wearing one, the match kicked off with Williams trying to jump Steiner. As a no DQ match I was pretty surprised at the total lack of involvement from other MEM members, Williams did a great job of selling as he always does and it never ceases to amaze me at how willing he is to put Steiner over on a regular basis.

Steiner hit the Frankensteiner and Williams went with it and did an excellent sell but not before getting up and hitting a nice running Power Bomb on Steiner who also sold that well. Referee Rudy Charles seemed to be the only person in the ring unaware of the no DQ stipulation (I have to assume he's deaf, stupid or pig ignorant as it was clearly announced) waving Steiner down as he grabbed the lead pipe. Williams sold a nice slam off the top turnbuckle allowing Steiner to retrieve the head dress for the win in 6:17, not a great match really.

TNA Knockout Gauntlet Match - The winner of this earns themselves a title shot, 2 people start off and every minute someone else will come into the ring, Battle Royal rules apply so you can only be eliminated by going over the top rope and touching the floor. Angelina Love (with Cute Kip) vs Taylor Wilde were the initial pairing to kick this thing off. Love took it straight to Wilde not even allowing her to stand up from the bell and it was just a slugfest, nothing pretty or technical about it. Next in was Velvet Sky which left Wilde to fight off the doubleteam for the next minute but there was no help coming as next down was Sojourner Bolt. Bolt took down both Love & Sky allowing Wilde to duke it out with Bolt and next down was Roxxi.

Roxxi did put Velvet Sky over the top rope and off the apron only for Cute Kip to catch her and put her back in the ring without her feet ever having touched the floor so it was interesting to see TNA explore that loophole in the rules (has any other wrestling fed ever done that before ?). Next in was Madison Rayne whose last appearance was jobbing to Kong on Impact 8th Jan 08, Rayne clearly isn't aligning with anyone as she was happily knocking the stuffing out of anyone and everyone that came within swinging distance of her fists. Next in was Raisha Saeed as West & Tenay commented on the fact that no-one had been eliminated yet.

Cute Kip made yet another save (this time catching Angelina Love after Roxxi had sent her over the top rope) and next in was Rhaka Khan. Her "nice kick to Roxxi" looked bloody awful and Roxxi did a good job in selling what little there was of the contact. ODB was last in who started off by taking out The Kongtourage then The Beautiful People (although Loves sell on her clothesline was quite frankly pathetic and wouldnt have sold if it was marked at 75% off) before ODB finally eliminated Rhaka Khan & then Raisha Saeed mere moments later.

Cute Kip made the save on Angelina Love for the 2nd time but Taylor Wilde eliminated both Angelina Love and herself at the same time as Kip was celebrating away from the ring. Roxxi finally eliminated Velvet Sky and I was really digging ODB's serious 80's mullet/mohawk hairstyle. Sojourner Bolt eliminated Roxxi a few moments later, also eliminating ODB mere seconds afterwards from the wrong side of the ropes which left Sojourner Bolt vs Madison Rayne in a standard match. Rayne took advantage hitting Bolt with boots aplenty before making a nice roll-up into a small package, Bolt also kicked out of a nice backslide (it was nice that Rayne finally got to show off some of her skills from SHIMMER).

Bolt forgot she was in a standard match now and ended up with a facefull of crossbody block from Rayne but Bolt took the win off what looked like a backward Implant Buster (whatever its called it looked great and Rayne sold it well) in 10:26. Very decent quality match by the women indeed.

Rough Cut segment on The Ultimate X match.

Tag Match - The Motor City Machine Guns vs Lethal Consequences aka the team I personally named and TNA stole my idea. Sabin & Lethal kicked off precedings here but Creed nearly faceplanted himself in an almost flub of his back roll over Shelley. Lethal made the eventual pin off Shelley to take the win in 4:30 which for these guys and their level of skill is far too short. Everyone had a great match though & it was a pleasure to watch apart from the crappy heel finish.

JB teases about an Internationally known Tag Team on their way to TNA. ODB's Angle, she shills a competition where you can win a date with her and also manages to get Brutus Magnus' name wrong. I thought they'd binned this idea as it wasn't very over? Video from a shrink session between Abyss and "Dr Stevie" (Former ECW and WWE worker Stevie Richards best known as part of the BWO, being Ravens tag partner and former member of Right To Censor. Also thought to be the one who offed Crash Holly).

Tag Team Championship - Abyss & Rhino vs Beer Money. I'm not exactly sure how Rhino & Abyss even got this title shot. I can't really recall them being tag partners before and its not as though they would even be the current #1 contenders either. I guess this match was hurriedly thrown together to forward the Abyss & Matt Morgan feud storyline but thats a poor reason to allow a brand new tagteam to get an instant title shot.

I don't even know if there was even an opening bell to this match as it'd already started whilst West & Tenay were jabbering over a video of Beer Money winning at the PPV. Way to miss the start of the match Mr Director, you idiot! Not content with missing the start of the match they also took a commercial break during it but Beer Money remained on top keeping Rhino in their corner.

Roode distracted the ref out of the ring once Abyss tagged in by brawling with Rhino at ringside, Storm was chokeslammed onto the phony beer bottle and he was lucky it didnt break when he landed on it. Matt Morgan ran in with chair and beaned Abyss as the ref was still outside with Roode & Rhino which allowed Storm to take the easy pin in a god awful match with an even worse finish in (roughly) 4:05 and quite frankly this match couldnt have been short enough as it was atrocious.

Hardcore History 101 with Mick Foley. Kurt Angle calls out Sting to come out & lay down to allow him an easy win of Stings title, this had earned Jarretts displeasure earlier so we had no clue how this was going to go down. Sting comes out as Angle insists he has to make an example of him (followed by chants of "you suck" from the Impact Zone crowd directed at Angle) and agrees to lay down but questions Angles integrity.

Sting shoots rather nicely, very close to the bone and shows he can still work a mic. Sting lays down and there is a huge "you suck" chant from the whole Impact Zone (despite some woman in the front row very loudly shouting "I love you Kurt"), Angle goes to make the cover to loud booing and then Angle just unloads before Steiner & Nash stop it with the crowd chanting "Let them fight" and Angle sets the match for next week as an empty arena match.

Summary - This weeks Impact had 5 matches which lasted a total of 32:24, just over 1 quarter of their actual time on air. I would have liked to have seen at least 1 more match and the Knockout Gauntlet match to have gone at least another 5 minutes.

Movie Review - Futurama, Into The Wild Green Yonder

This is the last in a series of 4 movies from the Futurama franchise, Matt Groening has said this will almost certainly be the final movie (I know that a figure of 4 was mentioned in various commentaries in the 3 previous films but this is definately the last of the series) but they may explore the franchise further in other ways, possibly online.

The movie starts in deep space with some reference to DNA then we get the typical Futurama episode (although they start on Mars Vegas as opposed to normally being in New New York) with the little message being written in one of the alien language fonts they use so much so thats the 1st thing for geeks to decode.

The plot revolved around Amy Wongs family having just demolished Mars Vegas to build a bigger better one, after an accident involving campaigning feminists Fry becomes a telepath and he discovers that a foil hat filters them out. Bender watches some Robot Erotica and falls in lust with a Robot Mobster Dons wife.

Fry decides to use his ability to win a million dollars in a poker tournament that Bender also enters to impress his gangsters moll. Fry eliminates the 1st and 2 are killed (and Bender really shouldn't win that hand as those aren't the cards he was dealt) leaving Fry to play Bender for the prize money. Fry should win (4 aces) but Bender has 5 Kings (so should be instantly disqualified for cheating surely?) and tries to flee with his squeeze but they are left digging shallow graves (to those wondering why there are 2 moons thats Phobos & Deimos because the film is set on Mars) but both obviously survive.

Leo Wong (Amys father) sets out his plans for the Universes biggest minature golf course stating he will destroy 12% of The Milky Way to build the whole course. The fact that this is most of the plot of Hitch Hikers Guide To The Galaxy (who did it far better and much funnier in 1979) goes to show the lack of creativity in these films.

The body of Spiro T Agnew is killed and action finally returns to Earth (30 minutes into the movie) where the head of Nixon orders the hunting down of the feminist activists and Leela who has now joined them. They sabotage the removal of Saturns rings and Leela decides they will need a mascot in the shape of the last living Martian Desert Muck Leech, Fry is captured and we discover the fate of the Universe rests in his hands like it normally always does.

We get a nice Heinlein reference (most non-readers won't pick it up or understand it) and the origins of life in the Universe are explained (it was caused by Chi), Fry is then told he must stop Leo destroying the Violet Dwarf. Bender sells out Leela for money (by bugging Fry's phone) and Fry joins Wongs as a security guard to smash the system from within.

Planet Express Ship is hijacked by the feminists and we finally discover who "The Dark Ones" are. We discover the feminists and the crazy people are both hiding in the same place and Zapp Branigan tries to capture her. Leela takes Fry with her as she is saved by the feminists, the Nimbus is sliced in half (so exactly how DO they lose ALL the men from only half the ship?) and theres an extremely weak bit of scripting that even Duran Duran can't save.

Theres an awful goof about what fuels the Planet Express Ship (purists will be screaming loud swear words!) and they are captured by The Nimbus. There is a trial & the feminists are found guilty and sent to prison for 50 years. Bender breaks them out and the repainted Planet Express Ship makes the save. Fry discovers Nixons secret of the moon landing and Fry reaches the same conclusion everyone else had guessed about 20 minutes previously (which is wrong).

The real Dark One is revealed and Groening rips off 2010, The Year We Make Contact. The new lifeform rips off an episode of Star Trek The Next Generation and Fry makes a scary statement. Fry gets soppy and Groening writes the worst and most opening ending ever. It's an awful end to a generally awful series of films and Fox really should have left Futurama the way is was as it'd gone out on a high.

My TNA Catch-up, Against All Odds PPV 09

X Division Championship - Eric Young vs Alex Shelley. Both of these guys have a lot of talent and ability. Their both popular and can both sell so it has all the ingredients of a potentially good match. Young was selling an injured midsection from early on with Shelley focusing on that. Both guys gave as good as they got with Shelley taking the eventual win off a schoolboy roll-up in 13:04, a decent length for a fairly good and even match.

Scott Steiner vs Petey Williams. This was never going to be a great match as Steiner is all about power and technicality where as Williams is speed and agility so its not a good combination for a match. Williams always works hard in any match he's involved in and if you can't get over fighting Petey Williams your either dead or never getting over. Williams bumped hard and sold well for Steiner as he always does but this was always going to be Big Poppa Pump on top with brief revival interludes for Williams.

Was there some issue with cable feeds during this match? Severe picture break up for over 20 seconds at one point at around 34 minutes into the broadcast (shortly before Petey called for the Canadian Destroyer) but Steiner took the eventual win off the Steiner Screwdriver in 11:18, not a great match with a weak finish as it seemed Steiner had no clue how to end it.

Open Challenge Match - Brutus Magnus vs Chris Sabin. Magnus is doing well to get into the PPV considering this is only his 2nd tv appearance for TNA. I wasn't overly impressed at Magnus in his tv debut and Sabin is a good worker so this will be an interesting match up. Sabin as usual did all the quick stuff with Magnus no selling any attempts at power moves by Sabin. Sabin had the much better match and it took Magnus having to cheat to eventually be in the position to win off The Tormentum in 6:51. Sabin may currently be unliked but Magnus won't even get over as a heel if he has to resort to finishes like that very often.

Womens Knockout Championship - ODB vs Awesome Kong. Against Jim Cornettes wishes the Kongtourage came down to ring but he soon put things straight telling them they could either go back to the locker room or he'd award ODB the belt right away. Kong was stupid enough to grab Cornette which allowed ODB to dive on her from the ring which finally kicked this match off. After some kicks into Kongs thighs ODB hit a nice bulldog before being taken out by a stiff looking clothesline as she was jumping off the middle rope.

(Note:- at time index 1:07:39 you can VERY clearly hear a fan loudly chanting "BORING!", no doubt he also thought he'd seen this match before when it was Andre vs Hogan in the 80's or when it was Yokozuna vs Lex Luger in the 90's). Kong really oversold when ODB finally did make the scoop slam but Kong took another easy win after hitting the Implant Buster in 9:33. Not a great match as was proved by the fan chanting boring.

Legends Championship (AKA Belt I Bought) Booker T vs Shane Sewell. Is there not some rule about having to defend a title every 30 days? Because the last time Booker contested this was 4th Dec 08 on Impact against Samoa Joe. I guess TNA read my last catch-up then as the ring announcer didn't call him "Referee", so thats yet another of my ideas being used on live tv.

With Sharmell at ringside there was always going to be the threat of interference and almost no chance of a clean finish to this match. This started slowly and stayed pretty slow and fairly boring like most of Bookers matches. Booker was on top for most of it until Sewell got into rage mode. Sadly Sewell only has 2 modes, one being rage mode and the other being do sod all mode. After a couple of scoop slams and a bulldog Sewell appeared to be on a roll until Sharmell predictably interfered and hooked his leg, tripping him which allowed Booker to take the win off the Axe Kick in 6:02. A bit of yack on the mic from Booker and AJ Styles made his comeback to beat the c**p out of Booker before shooting on what makes a Legendary Wrestler.

Special Grudge Match - Matt Morgan vs Abyss. These 2 never really ever got going as a team, its almost as though TNA Creative lost complete faith in their ability to ever get over as a tagteam and had a lot of difficulty booking them in the right kinds of matches. Morgan started this match wearing a T-shirt so I wondered if this meant he was going to take hardcore bumps into thumbtacks or glass. Abyss did try to use weapons but was stopped by the Ref and Morgan took this one out of the ring and through the crowd. Coming back in the ring Abyss went for weapons again which the Ref stopped yet again allowing Morgan to hit The Carbon Footprint but they were soon both down after a double clothesline.

Abyss hit the sideslam and went for the bag which Morgan stopped and the ref threw the bag out of the ring, we had a near miss then the worst and most predictable ref bump I've ever seen which allowed Morgan to go for a chair which he used to bean Abyss. Abyss made a very scrappy chokeslam that Morgan never had any intention of helping make look even remotely decent (so Morgan is more to blame for that looking like complete s**t), although Abyss totally sold Morgans chokeslam into the chair a mere few moments later. We had a 2nd and equally c***py ref bump (and to be honest the match should have ended there with another ref coming out from backstage and DQ'ing Morgan), Abyss hit the Black Hole Slam and a new ref came out to only make a 2 count.

Morgan hit a lowblow as the 2nd ref was looking after the 1st and set up for the Carbon Footprint but instead managed to totally fuck up The Black Hole Slam by not selling it or going with it (so that was at least twice during the match Morgan refused to either sell a move or trusted Abyss enough to go with it) and Abyss took the win in 15:41. This match was far too long and Morgan flubbed a number of moves.

Tag Team Championship - Lethal Consequences vs Beer Money. Shouldn't the announcer be saying the team of Lethal Consequences, the name TNA stole from reviewer Raymond Daley? Well TNA I am hugely flattered that you are using my ideas on air and I did tell you to steal that one (several times in fact) but in future I'd like to be paid please, contact me by email the next time you want to use one of my ideas?

Roode & Lethal kicked this off with Roode not wanting to lock up or face off and kept bailing back to the safety of his corner at the 1st hint of him not being on top. Creed worked Storm & there was no hint of his arm "injury" and Creed had his usual good run, Beer Money made their usual comeback taking the win off interference from Jaqueline in 15:44. Not a good match, far too long and an extremely poor finish.

4 Way World Heavyweight Championship - Kurt Angle vs Brother Ray vs Brother Devon vs Sting. On the face of it this might appears to be a tag match with the MEM vs Team 3D but in actuality whoever makes the pin becomes the champ, they don't even have to pin Sting to win. Can anyone explain why JB was doing ring announcements for the main event when they already have someone who does introductions? Mick Foley joins West & Tenay at the colour desk and by the time the bell rang the main event was only ever going to be just over 19 minutes long at best.

It seemed that Angle never had Stings back right from the get go, Ray & Devon were double teaming until Angle bumped Ray into Devon allowing Sting & Angle to get the upper hand. Ray taking a dive really made me laugh out loud as I also did while Ray & Devon worked each other and I'm fairly certain that as Ray ran Angle into Sting the 2 bumped heads pretty hard and it wasn't an intended spot.

Angle was cut open afterward so I'm not sure if he bladed as my attention was elsewhere at the time but from the location of the blood it looks like a weird place to blade as Angle generally cuts his forehead and that blood appeared to be coming from his right eyebrow. (Note:- Angle wore no tape on his wrists, hands or fingers which is where he normally conceals his blade).

Angle was hit by the Doomsday Device and although West & Tenay said Sting sensed the 3D it was more likely he heard it when Ray quite loudly called "Devon, 3D" so even I could hear it. Sting took the eventual win with the Scorpion Death Drop off Brother Ray in 14:36, not a bad match but the ending was a tad scrappy.

In tonights broadcast we got 8 matches which added up to a total elapsed match time of 1:32:49 in a ppv that was on air for 2:50:03 meaning 1:17:14 was wasted on interviews and video segments. It must be said that if TNA can't fill 3 hours of PPV then they shouldn't advertise it, advertise 1 hour 40 minutes and the same PPV looks postively excellent value for money.

Movie Review - Radioactive Dreams

Made in 1985 when the whole world lived under the shadow of the bomb and the Cold War looked like it would never end. Its quite ironic that this film and others before it echoed the fears of the whole planet but not long after its release the political climate started to change and it seemed the threat of nuclear war would finally be gone.

Starting on April 1st 1986, No, its not a joke. In fact not only is it not a joke its the day the world ends with Nukes aplenty going off. Fast forward 15 years from that nightmare to April 1st, 2001 and we are introduced to a couple of people living underground who survived the bombs.

Mainly the story is about Phillip and Marlowe, however that pun is intended as they are 2 guys who dreamt of become Private Investigators so its a post apocalytic film noir. It's so noir the movie even starts in black & white but it immediately changes to colour once the guys leave their shelter and drive into the outside world.

I knew I recognised the face of Phillip (John Stockwell) and it was because I remembered him playing the role of best friend Dennis in the horror movie Christine, the guy playing Marlowe (Michael Dudikoff) appears to be the worlds greatest bit part actor having been in nothing of any importance.

The helpful trawl tells you the guys are Phillip Hammer and Marlowe Chandler (ignore how their billed in IMDB.com, its wrong) and they'd grown up in a shelter full of 40's memorabilia and sleazy detective novels hence the stupid noir style names.

We also learn about a power struggle over 2 keys that could fire the last nuke left on Earth. The PI's rescue a damsel in distress (who also happens to have one of those keys) from some mutants and agree to get her to the closest phonebooth (like the telephone infrastructure will have survived WW3 or been rebuilt in 15 years?) but as those mutants are dealt with by some unseen force it appears the damsel may have both of the keys. We discover her name is Miles Archer (isn't Miles a mans name?) and a radio bulletin lets us know she was being chased by criminals.

She makes her phone call and bails on her rescuers having seen something that scared her but not before robbing Marlowe and dropping the keys in their car. The film then pretty much degrades into Mad Max meets the Keystone Cops and pretty much stays there. The guys discover the keys and the name on the case that contains them is Dash Hammer - Phillips father, so they set off to discover if he is alive or not.

After a bizarre encounter with Disco Mutants & a girl called Rusty Mars they finally enter Edge City, the closest thing to civilization. They walk around like a complete of complete rubes and you can tell they are going to either be constantly getting in or out of danger. It appears Rusty betrays Phillip to Sternwood, the leader of a local gang for the keys and he is told he will be sold for meat as the residents of Edge City are all cannibals.

There are a great deal of escapes, rescues, captures and betrayals to the point where it just gets plain annoying. We have mutant sewer monsters and more Disco Mutants which get Phillip and Marlowe separated (for no real good reason other than to allow Marlowe a brief moment of glory as he rescues Phillip from the Disco Mutants before they meet back up with Miles who takes them back to her place.

Phillip discovers a book on warhead arming & launch codes and finally realizes exactly what the keys are for and why they are in such high demand. (His flashback to his childhood is extremely inaccurate as its a very well known fact that looking directly into a nuclear blast burns out your retinas so he should actually be blind).

Setting off in 40's outfits that fit them perfectly (stolen from the Disco Mutants, thats what was inside the 2 packages they were carrying) Phillip & Marlowe sucker the gangs following them into a trap in the hope they will all kill each other in the confusion.

Theres a nice twist about the identities of 2 of the Mutant leaders which is followed by an extremely pointless battle scene (why bother fighting for something you already have?) which ends up with the keys in Miles' possession. Theres an even more pointless Mexican stand off and an unusual outcome with a very weak and incredibly open ending.

I assume it was left so open to allow a sequal if this had been any kind of success so judging from the lack of sequal it probably wasn't. The film is pretty boring, there are lots of periods of nothing happening interspersed with rapid paced action that doesn't last long then a bit of dialogue to following and the cycle continues from start to finish. It's a pretty good example of how not to make a movie and its only real redeeming feature is its 80's soft rock sound track full of artists no-one has ever heard of.

Making surfing easier

I've finally found out how to stop Firefox setting backgrounds to white and now have set all active windows to grey. It's now a lot easier on the eyes and I won't be suffering from so much retina burn.

I'd already tinkered around the the Windows settings and have now sorted those as well so there is virtually no white backgrounds anywhere on my system now.

No more snow blindness for me ;-)

Yummy food

Today I invented 2 meals.

At lunchtime I wanted soup then I remember there was some chicken pasta as well.
So I added chicken pasta to Thai chicken soup with some black pepper. Seriously delicious.

Then this evening I fancied chicken rice but again added the Thai chicken soup and black pepper.
Insanely delicious. I look forward to more from the Thai soup combinations ;-)

My Weekly TNA Catch-up, Impact 5th Feb 09 reviewed

Show opens with the MEM coming out to the ring to yack. Storyline garbage that no-one really cares about. Backstage interview with Team 3D. Rough Cut featuring Kiyoshi. Backstage interview with Consequences Creed & Jay Lethal.

Tag Match - The Motor City Machine Guns vs Jay Lethal & Consequences Creed aka Lethal Consequences. Well TNA I guess you owe me some money seeing as I came up with that name several weeks ago (Impact 8th Jan 09 to be exact). Email me! This match never got started as Beer Money jumped Lethal Consequences at the bottom of the ramp, the split screen was an awful idea as they were 2 tiny screens you could see virtually nothing on.

Webography featuring Jay Lethal. I guess I missed the intro title graphic for these last week when I mistook them for Rough Cut segments. Coming back from the webography this tag match finally did eventually get started as a handicap match with Lethal fighting both the Guns on his own, after about 4 minutes Eric Young came out to sub for Creed. Young got the eventual win off a double Death Valley Driver. Pretty decent match, shame it was only 5:17 long. It was pretty ridiculous that the show had been going for over 20 minutes before we even got the 1st match though.

Shelley challenges Young for the X Division title at the up coming PPV. Backstage garbage from Cornette's office. Webography featuring Eric Young. Video package about Sheik Abdul Bashir. Yet more backstage garbage from The Beautiful People.

Sheik Abdul Bashir vs Referee Shane Sewell. If he's in the ring wrestling they really shouldn't be introducing him that way. He's wrestler Shane Sewell, if he were a ref he'd be officiating the match instead of taking part. I'm not exactly sure why the Impact Zone crowd were chanting USA as Sewell is from Ontario, Canada, however Bashir was born in Minnesota. This wasn't very pretty or entertaining as neither guy is a particularly great wrestler anyway, Sewell was the better worker of the 2 and has a much bigger arsenal of moves. After a crap and rather predictable ref bump and double clothesline Booker T came out in his ref's shirt and started putting the count on Bashir & Sewell. Sewell had the pin and Booker interfered leaving the real referee Slick Johnson to call for the bell. It was predictable this was never going to have a clean finish and the Booker run-in and beatdown was equally predictable. What little match there was lasted 6:54.

More backstage garbage with Sting. Video package about Sting. I think its about time TNA stopped doing these before a match, I know they only just started doing them but we don't need to be told who is about to wrestle, they have a ring announcer to do that job who is way cheaper and quicker than a video package. Video catch up about the Beautiful People & Taylor Wilde/Roxxi feud thats apparently been on going for 8 months now.

Knockout Tag Team Grudge Match - The Beautiful People (with Cute Kip) vs Taylor Wilde & Roxxi. This one started with Love & Sky running up the ramp to jump Roxxi & Wilde and they fought outside the ring for over a minute before actually getting into the ring and finally starting the match properly. Roxxi had taken a bump into the ring steps during the prematch beatdown and was selling that she was knocked out with West & Tenay saying this had become a handicap match (what, 2 in 1 night?) so Love & Sky just basically beat the tar out of Wilde until Roxxi eventually climbed back up onto the apron. Roxxi was tagged in and appeared to be suffering no ill effects and Sky looked very scrappy working against Roxxi, Love came in for the doubleteam and Sky took the pin off Roxxi in a very low quality match for both teams. Love & Sky aren't particularly talented at the best of times and they were showing how bad they can be here. Match duration 2:54. It was rather sad that the highlight of the match was "The Governor" (better known as WCW Queen Of Scream Daffney and it really is about time they revealed who she is) made an outstanding save.

Video package about The Beautiful People. If they are going to persist in having these can they at least try to show them before the match the talent are involved in? Rough Cut featuring Kiyoshi.

Shark Boy vs Brutus Magnus. Magnus is making his Impact Zone TNA TV debut here having made his in-ring debut during the TNA European Tour. Fortunately this wasn't all Shark Boy jobbing, selling and putting Magnus over with Shark Boy hitting a nice Thesz Press. Magnus slid out of the Chummer attempt and took the win off the Tormentum in 2:15, I would have liked to have seen a longer match with more offence from Shark Boy. Magnus makes an open challenge for the PPV and apparently you can get away with saying Bollocks on American Telly!

More backstage garbage with Kurt Angle. Video recap of the issues between Abyss & Matt Morgan.

Matt Morgan vs Rhino. Neither of these guys has much in the way of actual talent and both have pretty much always got by on their strength and in Morgans case his height too. Morgan looked very unsure and didn't want to sell the belly to belly suplex off Rhino and made the move look truly awful. Morgan was setting up to hit The Hellavator into a chair when Abyss came down and the ref rang the bell calling for what I assume was a DQ (on outside interference?) so I assume Rhino took the win in 3:41. This was a really pointless run-in as these 2 guys will be meeting at this weekends PPV and its not like they have major heat between each other either so most people would have been content to wait another 3 days, Morgan bailed before Abyss got the chance to use the thumbtacks.

Abyss waffles on the mic before punching some thumbtacks. Video package about the MEM. Backstage garbage with Mick Foley.

Tag Match - Sting & Kurt Angle vs Team 3D. Angle & Brother Ray kicked this one off, Sting no doubt wanted Angle to get a taste of what he'd been given in the previous week. Angle repeatedly refused to tag Sting in and this ended in a face off between them where Scott Steiner was forced to intervene. Steiner interfered in the match allowing Angle to get the upper hand with Devon, 3D did set up for the Doomsday Device but Sting distracted the ref allowing Booker T to make the run in before Earl Hebner called for the bell with Team 3D winning off a DQ by outside interference in 7:52. Only Booker & Steiner took part in the beatdown, Sting just stood on the apron & watched before jumping down to the floor. Team 3D did eventually fight off Booker & Steiner but Steiner had to hold Angle back from Sting as it looked like Angle wanted to kick the living hell out of Sting.

Card run-down for Against All Odds PPV and the show ends on a teaser promo for Samoa Joe.

Summing up. This week TNA were exactly like WWE. We got 6 matches with only 3 clean finishes or actual finishes so its pretty sad that 50% of this weeks matches ended in DQ's, of the 2 hours of Impact 30 minutes was spent in commercial breaks and 28:53 was spent on actual in ring wrestling. These days the only differences between WWE and TNA are their staff and the shape of their ring. Other than that they are completely identical and thats very sad, TNA can't possibly hope to ever steal any of WWE's fans merely by exactly aping their every move. They have to be different and offer fans an alternative. I fear if TNA continue to pursue this path as a WWE clone they will lose their fan base to ROH once their weekly TV shows commence.

Movie Review - Star Wars The Clone Wars

Initially this sounded very exciting when I first heard the idea suggested, if George Lucas didn't want to spend a load of time shooting live action and spending millions of dollars then why not do an animated movie.

Sadly we knew the movie was doomed once the cast list was revealed to contain virtually none of the prequal cast. Only Christopher Lee, Samuel L Jackson & Anthony Daniels reprised their original roles with complete unknowns voicing the other roles.

The events of this movie take place before Revenge Of The Sith just to establish some kind of timeline. Previous fans of the Cartoon Network animated series The Clone Wars will be more familiar with the storyline and when it is supposed to take place.

For fans who were previously unaware of that series this may be a little difficult to initially follow or work out when it is. You can't really think of this as either a new Star Wars movie or a Star Wars movie in its own right, what it is turns out to be nothing more than a pilot for the next animated Clone Wars series.

The characters themselves are pretty well drawn on the whole and do accurately reflect their movie counterparts but you are left to wonder how much money George Lucas squandered in trying to get this into movie theatres merely to attract attention for a new tv series that most Star Wars fans already knew was coming any way.

The start of this will instantly annoy or divide fans as there is no opening title crawl as known and beloved to most Star Wars fans, instead it is replaced by a Flash Gordon style Narrator explaining what the current Star Wars universe situation is. Jabba The Hutts son is kidnapped by pirates so Mace Windu sends Anakin & Obi Wan to go and rescue him.

If you aren't a huge fan you probably won't notice the tiny differences in the voice portrayals of roles like Anakin, Obi Wan, Yoda & Palpatine although the characterizations of them (as well as the animations of The Clone Troopers, the space ships and the droid army will all seem immediately familar as they are pretty much exactly like in the movie however Obi Wan appears to have had some sort of make over by Loreal as his hair and beard look very weird indeed) may differ slightly from the live action films.

We get to meet Anakins Padewan Ahsoka (who he more frequently refers to as "Snips" although its never explained why and I can't work it out either) and after liberating a planet they go off on their mission to rescue Jabbas son. Obviously the mission is fraught with danger and we encounter a Sith Padewan Ventress who serves Count Dooku along the way. There are the usual collection of numerous large ground and space battles as well as light saber duels between Jedi & Sith.

Senator Amidala is captured by Jabbas brother who it is revealed was the kidnapper working for Count Dooku and she is rescued by C3P0, she explains he tried to frame the Jedi for the kidnap and she explains the truth and Jabba is reunited with his son. Its left as a very open ending to allow the series to develop the storyline further. Judged on its own merits its a decent animated feature made on the cheap by sourcing out most of the animation to Singapore and saving even more money by not rehiring most of the original actors to do voiceovers.

As a Star Wars film its awful and true fans will probably be very divided on it. Whether it will entice you into watching the new Clone Wars TV series (if you aren't already watching it) remains to be seen. It's just not very good as a stand alone movie and its truly awful as part of the series if your unaware of the series that went before it. I think George Lucas assumed a heck of a lot and alienated a lot of his potential audience in doing so.

Movie Review - Screamers, The Hunting

In 1995 a decent sci-fi movie was released based on a short story by Philip K Dick, the genius who gave us Bladerunner (or if you don't like him he's the idiot who gave us Freejack). Starring Peter Weller (best known as Robocop) it was a stark piece using the themes of war, identity and paranioa and also had very cool killer robots.

Fast forward 14 years (ironic as the computer tells them this rescue mission is 13 years after the last signals from the planet) to 2009 and we now have Screamers, The Hunting. It's based on the same planet as the original (Sirius 6B) and also features the same killer robots however none of the original cast have returned (Peter Wellers character is killed off in the opening 10 minutes stating he destroyed his ship in Earth orbit so he is just casually dismissed by a computer briefing the new cast) and the film is essentially a rip off of Aliens with a bunch of soldiers exploring a hostile planet investigating a distress call and trying to rescue any humans left alive on Sirius 6B.

The soldiers are told they have 6 days to search and get off the planet before it is hit by meteors which will leave it devoid of all life. We are told why they can't land right next to where the signal was but it was so quick I completely missed the explanation. The soldiers explore a bunker which turns out to be the Screamer manufacturing plant and we see how they scavenge human bodies for parts.

After discussing how much Screamer technology is potentially worth we see our 1st break in discipline when Sexton (one of the soldiers) sneaks away in the night to steal a deactivated Screamer, he hacks it and steals all the information stored inside it however the power he fed it allows it to reactivate after an encounter with a rat. Onboard the ship it appears the engineer is attacked or killed by the reanimated Screamer and whilst exploring a Mining Complex the soldiers are attacked by what appear to be other humans and one of them is killed by a Screamer.

Returning to their ship on day 3 of their mission they do discover their engineer dead (or whats left of him) and decide to try and leave the planet immediately but can't because the Screamer drained their fuel. Sexton tries to convince them its not the same robot they saw in the assembly plant and pretty much gives himself away by acting far too guilty.

On day 4 of the mission the soldiers try to reason with the people they encountered the previous day and explain about their fuel and the storm. We have an arguement about if the soldiers are really Screamers or not and we see the interesting Screamer detection method and we discover at least 2 people on the planet are definately human. The survivors on the planet also tell us a little about different types of Screamers killing each other and this is almost aping the human civil war that was going on in the original movie.

Its hinted that the survivors on the planet may be cannibals and the soldiers discuss the theory even further. When they go to investigate they discover that what they thought were prisoners or the survivors potential food source are actually Screamers (and it's painfully obvious that they are too) but they are easily killed (but not before they themselves kill several people).

By day 5 of the soldiers rescue mission only 2 of the survivors are still alive and only 4 of the solders (including Sexton). During the night the female survivor Hannah pretty much gives away that she is or might be a Screamer (why else would she say Humans are irrational?) and we discover Bronte the gutsy female solder was Hendricksons (Peter Weller in the original movie) daughter.

Entering another bunker to try and find a power source Hannah is accidentally killed (and she was really human) and the soldiers medic is killed and her body is scavenged by a Screamer moments afterwards. The remaining soldiers & Guy the male survivor are saved from a mass Screamer attack by an unknown man using some sort of EMP weapon.

We discover their saviour is Orsow (played by Lance Henriksen) the original creator of the Screamers and he tells them there are no other sources of fuel. Sexton sneaks away and his theft of Screamer technology is discovered by Bronte. Sexton attacks and wounds Orsow, stealing his fuel cells for the ship revealing his mercenary intentions by gladly abandoning the rest of the soldiers.

The removal of the fuel cells starts the self destruct as Sexton kills Orsow and one of the apparently dead soldiers is revealed to have been turned into a Screamer who also kills Sexton. Bronte takes the power cells and destroys Sextons stolen Screamer data chip and she and Guy manage to escape the self destruct and return to the ship.

Guy speculates on a Screamer/Human hybrid and they discover another of the soldiers on board who is also a Screamer and he starts to cast your suspicions about Guy when he used the word "we" a lot but Guy does kill him. They escape the planet and enter suspended animation and we are left wondering if Bronte is now in the same position as her father was 13 years ago, the only human to escape Sirius 6B with a Screamer on board the ship heading for Earth.

Bronte discovers she is pregnant (with Guys baby as they'd had a very annoying soft focus sex scene earlier in the movie but she is way too pregnant after only 2 months) and as Guy reveals he is a Screamer we have an incredibly weak and extremely open ending leaving space for another Screamers movie.

The trouble with this movie is it has virtually no connections to the original, the story is dull and extremely predictable with almost no surprises at all. Half the time you have no clue who characters are (they rarely refer to each other by their names) and there are too many scenes of not much happening with hardly any interaction with the lower grade Screamers. The films 1 big name is killed far too quickly and not utilised very well at all while he is alive. Despite the fact it too 14 years for them to make this most Screamers fans will probably wish they hadn't bothered.

Movie Review - Judge Dredd

Now I remember going to see this at the cinema in High Wycombe when it was released, it was a rare day off work spent feeding my inner sci-fi nerd. I am a fan of 2000AD and Judge Dredd and used to read the comic and graphic novels so I did already have a good working knowledge of Dredd and his back story. I had already heard that unimaginable was going to happen and Dredd was going to remove his mask in the movie. I already knew Slyvester Stallone was starring in the title role so I went in with an open mind.

Set in Mega City One the film opens with a nice James Earl Jones narrated trawl graphic that explains about Mega Cities, Judges and how they interact. We have a few decent actors in Max Von Sydow (Chief Justice Fargo), Jurgen Prochnow (Judge Griffin) and British music icon Ian Drury in his very short role. The film isn't exactly star heavy (with only really 3 big names to speak of) but the attention to detail in background, sets, costumes, weapons and extras more than makes up for this.

Fans of 2000AD and Judge Dredd will recognise most if not all of the character names (all the judges who sit on the council will eventually go on to become Chief Judges in the world of the comic), Dredds sidekick Hershey (the closest thing the very insular Dredd has to an actual friend) and his brother Rico as well as The Angel Clan and an ABC Robot.

The basic plot is that the crime rate is spiralling and there aren't enough Judges to control the huge population. A reporter investigating corruption is killed and it appears Dredd killed him. A trial is held and Dredd is found guilty off some rather damning evidence, to save him from being executed Chief Judge Fargo retires his position as Chief Judge asking that his replacement shows mercy.

Dredd is sentanced to life imprisonment in Aspen Penal Colony, which strangely enough is the prison his brother Rico recently escaped from. Griffin is made Chief Judge and a campaign of terror and violence takes place against the judges, it is eventually revealed Rico is behind this and is being controlled by Griffin.

Hershey tries to investigate Dredds crime and Dredds prison shuttle is shot down and intercepted in The Cursed Earth by the legendary Angel Gang (who are very accurately characterised from their comic counterparts). Dredd kills them all except Mean Machine Angel but he is saved from certain death by Fargo who had been sent on his Long Walk.

Dredd and a fellow prisoner break back into the city and set about trying to uncover how he was framed which leads to a climactic scene in a notable American location that seems to feature heavily in movie sci-fi. Obviously Dredds good name is eventually cleared and we get a rather predictable feel good ending. There isn't much of a plot to follow, characters aren't very well developed and the depth of culture behind 2000AD and Judge Dredd aren't very well utilised at all.

The film was universally hated and condemned by fans of the comic and it received a less than warm reception from other sci-fi fans. If the film were judged purely on its sets and costumes it would be set free, judged on script and characters and acting it really should be put to death out of everyone elses misery.

Movie Review - Zack & Miri Make A Porno

You can normally tell when a movie is going to be awful in various ways, one of those is if the advertising for the film is actually forced to change the title of the movie in the adverts. The title of this movie enraged advertisers so much due to the word Porno, it was removed from posters and TV spots so the movie was referred to as Zack & Miri.

There aren't any big names to speak of in the cast (I think Jason Mewes better known from Jay & Silent Bob was the only cast member whose name I knew, no shock he got a part in this as Kevin Smith wrote & directed this) although I did recognise the name of Traci Lords for all the wrong reasons.

The 2 main roles of Zack (Seth Rogen) & Miri (Elizabeth Banks) are complete unknowns to me, I don't recall Rogen from SuperBad at all which is probably a good thing for him as I hated the movie.

Zack & Miri are friends who share a house, he works in a coffee shop (you can't tell of she has a job but I assume not) but they are both struggling to pay their bills. She forces him to attend their 10th High School Reunion (where I recognised Kenny Hotz from Kenny vs Spenny) as she wants to meet Bobby the captain of the football team (who turns out to be gay and his partner is a gay porn star).

Bobbys boyfriend shows Zack & Miri they are internet stars (after 2 kids shot mobile phone video of Miri undressing & Zack showing his ass) and their water and power gets turned off then the idea for making porn is mooted by Miri. Zack eventually suggests himself as her porno partner but his way of asking her totally sounds like he wants her to be a hooker.

Zack persuades his co-worker Delaney to produce and finance them and a local landlord (in the shape of Horror Legend Tom Savini!) gives them a lock-up to use as a studio. The audition scenes are pretty funny as is the list of spoof movie names they suggest.

I did eventually recognise Jason Mewes (after they suggest Star Whores as their title) but only because he was wearing a wooly hat. The costume test sequence is pretty funny and its very Hitch Hikers Guide To The Galaxy that their studio is demolished and Zack realises they can use the coffee shop as a set.

After 1 successful night of shooting Zack & Miri have to face up to their 1st sex scene which is also their 1st sexual encounter which turns out to be a majorly awful and the most unsexy thing possible (I wholeheartedly agree with Delaneys comment) but is viewed as the greatest sex ever from Miri & Zacks point of view (it made me assume it was her 1st sexual experience).

The other members of the film cast club together and pay for a month of their light, heat and water so they can have a wrap party (despite the fact the movie isn't actually completed) and one of the porn actresses asks if she can have sex with Zack before they film a scene the following day which he does to the surprise of Miri.

Zack & Miri argue and its pretty evident they both have an emotional attachment and neither of them can cope with the other one having sex with anyone else. Its clear both of them have issues and Zack walks out on the film and leaves the shared apartment.

3 months later (according to the graphic) and Delaney tracks down Zack in a shitty job to ask him to write the end to the porno. Zack discovers Miri hadn't had sex with anyone else and goes to Miri to confess his real feelings, that he loves her. Lesters scenes in the apartment are totally bizarre (why would anyone want to see Jason Mewes naked?) and the obvious outcome is they hook up.

Your are left wondering if the porno ever gets finished or sold and Kevin Smith uses the end credits to shill every product that he has anything to do with online. Generally this is a moderately awful movie with some funny moments that raise it from being truly dire.

Movie Review - My Name Is Bruce

Set in a small town called Gold Lick (population 339 according to the sign) and for those who blinked before the kid knocked over the wooden sign it read "Protected For Those Who Died. Beware Those Without Bean Curd" (it says that although some letters are missing), I assume the 4 kids (Jeff the Bruce Campbell fan, Clayton his cooler friend, Big Debbie who doesnt go to school & Little Debbie) are Goths or Emo (who else would want to get laid in an abandoned Chinese graveyard?).

After removing some sort of amulet from the abandoned mine entrance Jeff awakens an undead Chinese person who kills Clayton and the 2 Debbies, we then cut to the real Bruce Campbell coming off the set of some low budget movie and meeting his agent (played by Ted Raimi) in a strip bar.

This is really a movie for die hard Campbell fans (you'll be spotting Bruce related stuff everywhere including "Shemp" label whiskey that he's drinking in his trailer) and its not very good. Bruce is kidnapped by Jeff and the troubadours keep you updated on what little plot there is (letting you know the undead Chinese person is called Guan-Di and he's a guardian of the dead but also the God of Bean Curd).

Jeff returns to town with Bruce (who they have obviously confused with the various on screen characters he has played) and they are heralded as potential saviours of the town and when Bruce doesn't show up on the set of his movie he is replaced by a dummy. Bruce thinks he is in the town as part of his birthday present from his agent and Bruce thinks he is on an acting job.

In case you hadn't heard the troubadours explaining about the death of the Chinese Miners right at the start of the movie the town mayor gives a slide show to explain it all again. He also explains about Guan-Di again in case you'd forgotten about him.

Far too much time is spent from Bruce arriving in town to actually going out to confront Guan-Di and Campbell takes all the men of Gold Lick out to face Guan-Di killing & wounding several people in his retreat. Campbell bails from the scene on a stolen bicycle before stealing a car from an old lady (revealing how much of an egotistical heartless prick he is) after realising the monster is real.

Jeff rings Bruce to tell him he's going to face Guan-Di by himself which guilts Campbell into going back to face the demon (we get to see Bruce's real birthday gift which is an interesting surprise). Jeff's mom realises Bean Curd will help them and Bruce points out they need to return the amulet, Jeff blows up the mine entrance sealing Guan-Di inside and Bruce replaces the amulet but theres a triple twist ending the 1st and 2nd of which pretty much negate the entire movie up to that point.

Its a very weak movie, its low budget and the twists totally ruin what was already a pretty awful movie. Die hard Bruce Campbell fans will love it but fans of low budget horror probably won't.

WWE Monday Night Raw 2nd Feb 09 reviewed

Coming from St Louis, this was the Sky Sports 3 feed so if any matches are missing that is why. For those who don't like my reviews or don't rate them then either don't read them or write your own. Until you start writing your own you are in no position to comment.

Show opens with Shane O Mac coming out to bore us on the mic wasting almost 12 and a half minutes before any kind of in-ring action happened and even then it was about 2 seconds worth of storyline s**t.

Mixed Tag Match - CM Punk & Mickie James vs William Regal and Layla. Punk had an ok match but other than him this was pretty s**te. Regal took the win in 3.17.

Wrestlemania Advert.

Tag Match - Cody Rhodes & Ted DiBiase Jr vs Cryme Tyme. I guess after Rhodes & Ted Jr had been beaten down by Shane earlier Cryme Tyme should have had the edge here. Rhodes was the more impressive of his team, did Ted Jr spend ANY time in developmental (OVW or anywhere like that?) as his skills look scrappy and extremely questionable (so no doubt Mottolla will think he's awesome). Cryme Tyme took the win by DQ in 2.45, c**p finish to an awful match that Rhodes had the best of.

Some c**p about Mickey Rourke even though the greenest mark knows he's not taking part in Wrestlemania. Another Wrestlemania advert, if its 62 days away why the f**k are they bothering to advertise it now. Backstage c**p from Orton, Rhodes & Ted Jr.

Chris Jericho comes down to the ring to waffle about Mickey Rourke wasting over 5 minutes.

Tag Match - Rey Mysterio & Kofi Kingston vs Kane & Mike Knox. I hope this isn't Mike Knox from ECW who always got people jobbing to him in squash matches, the guy didn't have an ounce of talent. Kofi & Rey had a decent match here, Kane seemed happy to be putting them over sadly Knox didn't seem so willing with Kofi having sell bumps from Knox but the crowd were certainly marking for Kofi (proof talented guys can be talented and over with the marks too) but Kane took the eventual win with a chokeslam on Mysterio in 8.17. The light guys had the better match here, Kofi sold some excellent bumps.

Orton, Rhodes & Ted Jr jump Shane backstage in more pointless storyline s**t. A review pf the card for the No Way Out PPV and yet another advert for Wrestlemania. Wow, WWE must really have thought the last one was s**te (I agree with them) if their shilling it more than 2 months before the show. Advert for Smackdown (I'm not exactly sure who this is aimed at, surely most RAW fans watch Smackdown without needing to be told when its on?).

Diva Match - Candice Michelle vs Beth Phoenix (with Santino Marella & Rosa Mendez to come and hold her Slammy Award no doubt?). Quite a decent if somewhat short match from both women, Phoenix showing she doesn't really need the outside interference and took a clean win in 2.34. It's time she dropped Santino and worked off her ability, she can still be a decent heel just not with the goons.

JBL chews out HBK for his performance last week, more storyline s**t wasting time when they could be having matches. More than 13 minutes of air time was wasted here. Another recap of Shane getting attacked backstage as well as Steph talking to Kane wasting even more time.

Chris Jericho vs John Cena. Cena jumped Jericho before the bell so this was never going to be pretty, I guess either Jericho avoids the 'roids or isn't hitting the gym as much these days as he does look decidedly flabby around the gut. I assume there was a commercial break that caught the announce guys unaware after Cena was kicked over the colour desk as he was just as suddenly back in the ring, Cena sold some decent bumps and I give him props for that. Jericho still has good aerial moves and these guys worked well together with both of them getting over especially during the sequence of reversals and near falls. Cena took the win by submission in 8.52.

Summing up. Another 2 hour show taking over 28 minutes in commercials with 5 matches and 4 clean finishes, actual matches took up 25.45 (or there abouts) so yet again lots more time being wasted on storyline s**t, talking and video packages that could be better utilised by showing matches. If WWE really is the superior product then its about time it dropped its dependency on backstage s**t to carry the in-ring stuff. A superior product shouldn't really need to spend over 50% of its time doing anything outside the ring.

Movie Review - The Chronicles of Riddick, Dark Fury

I am a fan of the Riddick movies and quite like anime too so I thought I'd give this a go, its set between Pitch Black and The Chronicles of Riddick and does feature the voices of Vin Diesel as Riddick, Keith David as Abu the Imam and Rhiana Griffith as Jack (who is the original Jack in Pitch Black). Nick Chinlund also features as the voice of Toombs (from The Chronicles Of Riddick).

The character animations of the lead characters are pretty good and fairly faithful to their look in Pitch Black, Vin Diesel manages to recapture the world weary tones of Riddick perfectly almost as though he'd never stopped playing the role. As far as the rest of the cast go some might recognise the voices of Dwight Schultz (better known from The A-Team & Star Trek Next Gen & Voyager) and Tress MacNeille (from The Simpsons & Futurama).

The film starts with a ship containing Riddick, Jack & Abu being captured by Mercenaries and Riddicks rather clever ways of avoiding detection and killing some of them. We discover that Chillingsworth the leader of the mercs captures and freezes Furyans & other criminals, displaying them like art or trophies.

Toombs is defrosted (as all the Bounty Hunters are also kept in suspended animation until needed or their predecessors are killed) and Chillingsworth asks Riddick to show her how he works (revealing she's a psychopath) by making him defend Jack & Abu from 2 alien creatures.

Riddick also shows an incredibly creative solution to having a bomb implanted into his neck using it to escape so Chillingsworth sends every living thing at her disposal after Riddick. Riddick leaves a trail of his own blood allowing Jack & Abu to get to the flight deck where they are recaptured by Junner, Chillingsworths 2nd in command.

At this point in the feature the animation style becomes very abstract, characters are taller and their limbs are longer (its almost as though they had switched artists as well as artistic styles here) and this switch is very evident during Riddick and Junners fight which ends in Riddick fulfilling his previous promise or threat to Junner with a great deadpan line perfectly delivered afterwards.

There is a rather interesting double twist ending which I won't reveal and Abu's feelings about Jack will eventually prove to be correct. For such a short feature (just under 35 minutes) they manage to pack a lot into it but I would have liked to have seen another 20 minutes of story as I felt they barely used Toombs or the cyborg creature.

I'd recommend this to fans of the Riddick franchise and its also a very good stand alone piece of anime in its own right with plenty of action, excellent characters and very good quality animation and illustration.

Movie Review - Zoolander

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Movie Review - Tropic Thunder

A movie "based on a book based on an Army rescue mission that happened in South East Vietnam in 1969", a mission to rescue a Sergeant that was considered suicide. And thus is the premise of Tropic Thunder, the making of that movie.

The bodycount in this seems like it will be very high (even if their only making a movie) but isn't & we get the pleasure of seeing the near fatal wounding of Ben Stiller before the movie is 4 minutes old. Rather unusually this movie set is actually in Vietnam (Quang Tri Provence according to the title graphic) because most Vietnam movies are generally filmed outside the country (it is worth noting that they actually filmed this on one of the islands of Hawaii).

We get to meet some of the on screen and behind camera personal (including Steve Coogan playing Damian Cockburn the director) Jack Black as Jeff Portnoy playing one of the soldiers (who is a parody of Chris Farley), Robert Downey Jr as Kirk Lazarus (a white actor playing a Negro soldier) and Ben Stiller playing Tugg Speedman who is the lead actor whose movies have all flopped.

Matthew McConaughey plays Speedmans agent Rick Peck and a very heavily disguised Tom Cruise plays Les Grossman the films financer. Nick Nolte is playing John Tayback who is the author of Tropic Thunder. There are also 2 minor parts that are Kevin Sandusky (the only guy who attended the Army boot camp training and the only person who read the book & script) and Alpa Chino, a black rapper trying to become an actor (parodying people like Ice Cube).

Cockburn can't control his actors and comes up with a plan to drop them into the middle of nowhere away from their luxeries to get a more gritty realistic movie by filming from hidden cameras. He confiscates their mobile phones (althought Speedman hides his) and sends them off with a map & shot list to get going & try to save the movie from being shut down.

Cockburn is killed after stepping on a landmine taking their only link to civilisation with them but Speedman doesn't realise its not a special effect. They manage to attract the attention of some heavily armed locals who think the actors are real military or DEA. Speedman gets the other actors to pursue the movie even though he doesn't realise they aren't being filmed and the director is dead.

When Tayback & Cody Underwood the special effects guy go to find out why Cockburn isn't answering they find his remains and Underwood discovers Tayback actually does have hands. The actors argue and Speedman goes off on his own, they further the idea his character might be the crazy John Rambo type when he attacks and kills what he thinks to be a bear and turns out to be a panda.

Tayback admits he was only in the Sanitation Department of The Coastguard & that he wrote Tropic Thunder as a tribute and Speedman is captured by the locals as Portnoy suffers the DT's. We discover the locals are harvesting opium & Portnoy unwittingly finds the drug processing centre that Speedman thinks is a POW camp set.

After being beaten by Tran (the leader of the drug gang who looks about 12 and probably is) they realise Speedman is really an actor and decide to hold him for ransom and the drug gang finally identify themselves as Flaming Dragon and they force Speedman to re-enact the entire movie they love (Simple Jack, a parody of Forrest Gump) and we also discover that none of the main actors have read the book or script of Tropic Thunder.

Grossman tells Flaming Dragon they can kill Speedman as they wont pay the ransom (which started at 50 million and was increased to 100 million) so they can claim on insurance and recoup the costs of the movie. Portnoy confesses his drug habit and asks to skip the mission to go cold turkey. Peck is left to contemplate if he wants to help Speedman or become the owner of a luxery G5 jetplane and Chino almost reveals he is gay.

Lazazrus hatches a plan and its ridiculous to believe that none of the Flaming Dragon troops wouldn't be able to recognise the difference between blank and live rounds being fired (suspension of disbelief is slightly too much there) and we see Speedman has developed Stockholm Syndrome.

Underwood & Tayback help create distractions after being freed and Lazarus suddenly loses most of his pigment after removing his wig, contacts and fake facial hair. Speedman & Lazarus ape his death scene (from near the start of the movie) and Peck manages to save them all using Tivo. Speedman wins an Oscar (for a film about the making of Tropic Thunder) and along with numerous other Oscars the film also makes $400 Million dollars.

The film isn't great, Tom Cruise as Grossman lifts the film from slightly annoying to rather funny. Stiller fans will probably love it, Jack Black has his moments (mostly after he goes cold turkey) and Robert Downey Jr has his moments alternating between funny and annoying. The drug aspects of Flaming Dragon could have been more easily and quickly explained and established by showing an aerial shot of poppy fields before the actors landed (it would have also given a good reason for them to think the actors were DEA).

It was very annoying that the only person who died was from a 30 year old landmine, with the amount of live rounds that were fired during the rescue scene at least 1 cast member should have died (normally its the black guy who gets killed 1st so Chino would have gone) and Sandusky should have died in the truck explosion ditto Speedman in the bridge explosion. It probably would have been funnier for Lazarus to be accepting Speedman's Oscar for him posthumously.