I was really looking forward to seeing a cool vampire movie with my sister when she was in town. My sister partook of my somewhat odd vampire obsession when I was about fourteen years old, a disillusioned, loner teen who was painfully shy and constantly had dreams of escaping my dreary, awkward life.  The first vampire movie that really did it for me was one called Fright Night, a somewhat campy vampire movie that had a totally sexy guy – actually Susan Sarandon’s ex husband Chris Sarandon.  I think I was more obsessed with how sexual he was and how he was sort of my first crush on screen, but I was also completely enthralled with the whole vampire legend.

The second vampire movie I saw that I soon became obsessed with was “Lost Boys”, a hip, sexy film that had heart throbs Jason Patrick, the two Coreys (Haim and Feldman for those of you who didn’t grow up somewhere between the eighties and nineties) which I must have seen about 50 times.  These movies really had something that made me think. They made me feel excited. And that’s exactly what’s happening with the obsession with vampire mythology today.

There are so many vampire series, films and books popping up that it’s become a national obsession, and I wonder if it coincides conveniently with the nation’s conditions, as a form of the ultimate escapism one can experience. After all, wouldn’t we all love to be immortal, and not have to worry about food, have superhuman strength, never have to sleep and somehow have access to oodles of money without ever working thanks to our long lives and ability to save money (yes, this is a common theme too, vampires almost never need money).

The newer movie Daybreakers is a different vampire movie, but nonetheless one that is trying to cash in on the vampire craze while it’s still at it’s peak.  It’s based on a concept that in the near future, vampires basically take over the world, turning all of their prey into vampires, until there are no more humans left except a hand full that have to run for their lives and hide in fear since they are the only natural food source left on the earth for all former humans/vampires.

This movie had some very interesting special effects, one of which held the audience fasincated. It was s starving vampire, one that looked like a giant half bat and half human which was pretty great to watch.  The concept was fairly original, but it was a bit of a ripoff of vampires in the real world as in the True Blood series.  However, the script really veers off path and this movie takes off into totally ludicrous, implausibility in about the last hour (I know, that’s a long time).

Hawke is good as the brooding scientists vampire who never drinks human blood even when starving, and Willem Defoe and Sam Neill give decent performances in their surprisingly small parts, but overall this movie lacked a good script, good editing and good production. We were actually laughing during some of the scenes, which I’m sure was not the intended outcome.  Again, special effects were great, the entertainment factor was ok, but all in all I was disappointed and thought they could have done a better job with such a talented cast and excellent effects supporting this ridiculous story.

Oh, and Ethan Hawke is still looking hot for the ladies that might be interested in a little eye candy.

I’m a huge fan of the hit Showtime series “Dexter”, so I was super excited when the 4th, and most recent, season started showing on the channel. This is one of the few shows that we actually will add the cable channel to our television for to watch it as it plays, rather than wait for it all to come out on DVD, so you know it’s pretty special!  Dexter, as you may know, follows a serial killer, played by the uber talented (and very handsome I might add) actor Michael C Hall, who used to be in another hit show Six Feet Under, which I tried out a few years ago, but stopped watching because it just didn’t grab me.

However, he’s not just your run of the mill serial killer, no. He kills with a purpose, he only kills the “bad guys”, although I suspect that without his dead father’s advice and constant ghost in his head telling him the difference between right and wrong, he may have killed indiscriminantly because his “dark passenger” need to kill and mutilate bodies is too powerful. Dexter is a self proclaimed sociopath.  Throughout the series though, we see him start to develop feelings for other people, that, in his own twisted way, mirror emotions of a true human being.

He develops a conscience, and compassion, although there are still some parts of him that need more development before he can be considered – er, fully human I guess you might say.  The fourth season of Dexter is excellent. We just finished the final episode, and let me tell you, it’s quite a bombshell ending for the season, and I’m really not quite sure where they are going to go with this next season, but I must hand it to the producers and writers, they have a lot of guts to do what they did.

We find Dexter in season 4 with a family, and with Rita’s and his baby as well. He’s a swamped family man who is trying to juggle a job, a wife and a family, and oh yeah, still trying to satisfy his dark need to kill people too. Needless to say, with too many irons in the fire, Dexter starts to get a little sloppy, and we see him screwing up left and right, much to our chagrin.

The antagonist in this season is John Lithgow, who is excellent as he’s always been in everything else.  He is the Trinity killer that Deb, Dexter’s sister’s ex boyfriend, the ex FBI agent Lundy, has been pursuing for years, without anyone believing him because the evidence is purely coincidental.  The season follows his travails trying to figure out who he is, and finally, breathlessly trying to reconcile who he is with what his family has become to him, and whether or not the two can peacefully, or successfully, coexist or not.

HGTV is one of my favorite channels. I know, I know, back in my early twenties, I never thought I’d be caught dead watching what I would have surely considered a totally boring station like this, with home how to’s and decorating advice, but now I can’t seem to get enough of this great channel. Two of my favorite shows are My House is Worth What, where homeowners find out if their home has enough equity to add on or to sell, and you get to see three awesome houses inside and out, and the other favorite is House Hunters, where you follow couples and individuals on their quest for their next home. You get to see three homes or ranging quality on that one too.

All in all, I guess as I get more into decorating and home making, if you will, I love to look at other people’s homes and get decorating ideas for my own home, and also get ideas to do things in a cheaper, more cost effective way. I also have started watching one of their landscaping shows, as we are looking at ideas to landscape our yard and plant additional trees as privacy screens in our back yard for next spring.

All that aside, I had to remind everyone to make sure they enter every day of the HGTV Dream Home Sweepstakes this year. You still have almost 30 days to put your entry in once every day if you wish, or you can just enter once if you want to do that. It is one of the most gorgeous homes yet this year. It’s built in New Mexico, where the sun shines most of the year, and it’s a pueblo style facade with a gorgeous rustic inside, with modern amenities and touches. Absolutely breathtaking.

And this year, to boot, they are also adding another incentive for entering their contest by adding a nice $500k cash to the pot. Part of me wonders if this was added to cover the property taxes and prize taxes people probably get killed with when they win this contest – that’s gotta be it. I bet they had too many people who won the house, but couldn’t afford to actually live it it!  Anyways, I’m entering every day from now til the contest is over. Who knows, maybe one of these days I’ll win

We’ve just started the second season of the show 30 Rock, which was in jeopardy of being cancelled just a short year ago when it came up for potential renewal on NBC.  I’m glad they didn’t cancel it, because it’s one of the few intelligent, quirky and edgy comedies out there that actually tickles my funny bone more than any other new sitcom. In fact, it’s the only network sitcom I can stomach at the moment.

We tried out the Courtney Cox vehicle Cougar Town,and while that show had some good laughs and great jokes, there was just something missing. It seemed too contrived, too planned, whereas 30 Rock gives you more of a pros of comedy feel, with excellent comedic timing and even better writing by the likes of Tina Fey and other SNL alums. No wonder why the humor is edgy and hilarious.

Not that 30 Rock is without it’s dud episodes.  It definitely has those too. For example, we just watched the finale for the first season, and I’d have to count that among one of their dud episodes, especially since it was the finale and the finales are typically held to higher standards of impressions.

The chemistry between Tina Fey and Alec Baldwin is irresistible.  They’ve kind of developed that sort of comedic timing that Ted Danson and Shelly Long had in Cheers so many years ago, and that “will they or won’t they” factor is starting to creep in a bit too, although you know if they did get together, it would totally ruin the show, and it would probably end it, so they will keep sort of subtly dangling that in our face for a while I’m sure.

Kenneth, the tour guide and general gopher for all the other people on the show is great too. His wide eyed hick yet totally loyal character is great, and just looking at him makes me laugh. Not sure where this guy came from, but Hollywood should definitely give him lots more work after this show is cancelled, because he is great. Judah Friedlander, the free spirited, negative, you think he smokes weed constantly character is great too. And Tracy Morgan is awesome as the phsychotic yet loveable Tracy Jordan, a takeoff of himself and other black comedians who have been geniuses of their time, but also troubled by demons and scandals that were later made fun of.

All in all, 30 Rock has been a great filler show to watch and has provided me and my hudband with lots of laugh, big and small, I’m really glad they didn’t cancel it!

Well, we finally saw District 9 on Blu Ray. We just got the disk right before New Years day, and we watched it on New Year’s Day.  Let me start by saying that I do think this movie is a great, original premise, and while it is symbolic of apartheid, it did feel a bit like the message wasn’t too subtle.  I think that and one other issue were the only problems with this movie that I found, but other than that I found it to be a worthwhile entertaining watch, and didn’t feel like I just wasted an hour and a half of my life when it was over, which is common for me to feel these days with the crap that is mass produced into the movie theaters and passed off as entertainment.

This small budget movie was based off of a Youtube short movie from what I understand, and was picked up by producer Peter Jackson who was intrigued by the concept and thought it would make an interesting full length cinematic release movie.  And he’s right, it does translate well into a full length feature film.  It was shot as part movie, part documentary style, and we see that these aliens have landed on earth, seemingly crashed and out of contact with others of their species, and their giant vessel hovers over top of Johannesburg Africa.

The species, dubbed “prawns” because of their insectile and slightly crustacean appearance, are quickly cordoned off into their own living quarters, later dubbed District 9, after run ins and misunderstandings with humans have caused a lot of fear and mistrust among the two species. Basically, humanity ends up abusing the prawns, leaving them in the slum like living conditions of District 9 where concentration camp like atrocities are performed on a daily basis.  Hence, the message of apartheid and persecution come in, which is kind of shoved down our throats with numerous story lines and innuendos, but because it is well done and entertaining, we don’t mind as much as we might usually.

I will say, without giving the plot away, and that plot took a much different turn than I thought it would, and it has left itself open for a sequel for sure. I thought the movie really held its own in originality and great acting, as well as a great plotline, until it sort of lost itself in action sequences and your typical blast fest in the end, losing some of it’s originality and edge.  I’d recommend this movie for anyone who has an open mind. It’s different, and thought provoking, when you see humanity in general as the agressor and the bad guy, and not the aliens.

I usually don’t review books, but honestly I’ve been a lot more in to reading than I have been in to watching TV or movies.  So, I guess I have a lot more material to work with when it comes to the written word now.  I just finished reading the Stephen King book “The Long Walk”, which is one of the last ones he wrote with his alternate pen name Richard Bachman. It was written, as I understand, in the late sixties, early seventies, and it was not actually published until the late seventies.

This book is based on a really simple, but extremely terrifying plot.  It takes place in some sort of alternate reality where we are ruled by a fascist regime, but that is not really the point of the book and is never really fleshed out, however, what it is more based on is the story of the relationships between the young men who sign up for what is basically a suicidal reality show type game called the Long Walk, which is the biggest national event of the year. 

The  main character from whose point of view we hear the story is Ray Garraty “Maine’s Own”, who seems to be a disillusioned young man that signed up for the Long Walk not really comprehending that it was a one to one hundred odds suicide walk.  Basically, we hear conversations about relationships, musings on the mundane things in life, love, and a lot of talk about death, and onlly touchings on why they are doing this and what it’s all about, or the state of the country and why this sort of suicidal/murderous reality show type of walk is even allowed to happen.

The Long Walk is a walk that takes 100 boys in the month of May, gives them food in the form of concentrates and canteens whenever they need them, and sets them off on what becomes an excruciating walk where you are literally walking for your life. Because the only person who lives is the person who walks the longest. 

There are numerous characters that are interesting, some that are seemingly sociopaths or sickos who want to see people die, some that didn’t really understand what they were getting into and were naive that their lives would be lost when their legs just gave out on them, and some that genuinely believed they would be the last man standing. 

After you get over the horror of boys dying just because they can’t keep going any more, you start to realize that this is a commentary on the general state of society.  Even back then, King had an insight into the future, as he was commenting on the increasingly voyeuristic nature of people, and how we are really just a bunch of animals at heart, but that the human spirit is enduring, no matter how imperfect it may be.

This is one of the better books I’ve read by King, because it’s simple, and it’s horror is realistic. There is nothing supernatural about it, but it makes you really think about humanity.

First of all, Sam Worthington, yum, I am a big fan. Not only is this man ruggedly good looking but not too good looking with overly whitened teeth and a coiffed look that most male stars can’t get past after they’ve been stars for too long, but he is a really good, really believable actor.  Christian Bale, on the other hand, I was not as big a fan of in this movie. I’m not sure what happened to him, but some of his conviction has gone out of his acting.  I wonder if I’ll ever see him at his former “American Psycho” caliber again after seeing him in 2 Batman movies where he was just ok, and now this too, which is another major motion picture series.  Maybe I’ve gotten tired of him, but I think he was better when he was small time.

Overall, this movie, which is a sort of prequel to the others that are out there, but not really since it’s technically in the future, got pretty bad reviews from a lot of people. I’m not sure why, as it is no horrendous, and definitely is what you’d expect from an action flick set in the future. What I didn’t like was some of the plot points. For instance, the end presents a totally ridiculous scenario, and also I must say I wasn’t pleased to learn that Sam Worthington, which was the highlight and the real star of this movie, most likely would not be returning for the other movies.

In Terminator Salvation, we see a postapocalyptic world after Skynet has reigned judgment day down on the  human race, in an effort to eradicate the humans and inhabit and rule the earth themselves after they have become self aware. It’s of course along the same lines as other movies where we are overcome by computers, the very machines we built to make our lives easier, but this movie was a bit before it’s time before the paranoia theories started to take root in cinematic history.

Like other movies in this similar vein, take for example the Matrix series, this movie has just about burnt itself out. I think they should have left well enough alone to be honest, but instead they keep prolonging the mythology and adding more plot points in what seems like a tired idea, hoping the recapture the excitement and originality of the first ones. I liked this movie, but I wasn’t overly impressed with it’s originality. The special effects were pretty good, but there was just something lacking. Besides the hybrid character Marcus, there really wasn’t much heart, and you didn’t feel for the characters like you should have. Let’s hope the next one will be a little better, as I’d like to see this series done justice.

So, I finally saw the last Harry Potter film, which just recently came out on DVD. We watched it on Blu Ray, and it looked even more fantastic than it usually does, and the sound was incredible since Blu Rays allow for the best sound quality possible in a DVD.  We’ve seen all of the Harry Potter movies. And by the way, we don’t have any children and we are in our thirties, so these movies definitely speak not only to a young audience, but also to an older as we’ve seen Harry Potter and his rag tag group of young magicians come of age in a really cool, visually stunning fantasy universe.

This movie is of course based on the Harry Potter Half Blood Prince book, and they usually follow the books to a T.  I haven’t read the books, but that’s what I’ve heard.  This one finds Harry Potter getting a potion book that once belonged to someone called “the half blood prince” as inscribed on the inner cover of the book. In the book, the half blood prince has scrawled dozens of secret formulations and secrets to his success, and Harry becomes a master at making potions and casting spells. We of course find out who the Half Blood Prince is toward the end of the movie, and it happens to be someone we’re all very familiar with by now.

This movie also finds Harry and various older magicians assaulted by the followers of Lord Valdemort, whom we have seen neither hide nor hair of since a few movies ago, however we find out that his soul lives on in various objects since he cast a special dark magic spell that allowed his soul to be split into several pieces in order to be stowed in various objects so he could live forever, and essentially became indestructable.

We also get a lot more background on who Valdemort is. We see flashbacks of him as a child magician, and how he evolves into the ultimate evil, dark magician that he did.  We also see how Harry is putting together the pieces on how to finally defeat him and avenge his parent’s death and also prevent further death and destruction by the dark lord.  Wow, I just realized what a nerd I sound like describing this. Without ruining it if you haven’t seen it, we also see the death of a very beloved, key character, which actually kind of shocked me as I have not read the books and didn’t see it coming.

All in all, I liked this one a lot better than the last one. This one, although the lengthy three hours and some odd minutes, flowed seamlessly and I was entertained the whole time. The imagery is dazzling as usual without looking phony, and the kid actors are as awesome as ever, supported by a talented cast of adults. They have really done a bang up job on these movies in my opinion.