Sunday, February 15, 2009

I: Beast Has Risen

Note: In the section of text following the colononical (Or whatever), I will be putting important words in all caps. This will help save time if you cannot spare the full 90 seconds it will take to read the whole thing, but still would like a sort of Clif's Notes. It will work much in the same way that the summary found at the end of each chapter in a science text is all you need to read to understand all the important points from that chapter, which enables you to complete your studying in a borderline-record minimum of time, and also to get a D. Additionally, abbreviations that are normally capitalized (i.e. - TV, DVD) will continue to be so. This may be confusing, but I don't really care.

It begins with a DVD case. This case typically sits on a shelf in my room (Note - Originally the first pronoun in this was 'you'. But then I remembered that I BLOODY HATE THE SECOND PERSON VOICE. I would like to take this opportunity to give it to horrible Jimmy Eat World songs. Though if we're (Collectively) lucky, they won't take me up on this), ignored most times when I have not been imbibing root BEERS. It is a case like any other, by which I mean made of plastic and full of a DVD. And that is all. You know how when you buy a DVD (Such as, say, Singing In The Rain) you open the case to find that the movie itself may actually be contained therein, but this is completely UNPROVABLE, as the case contains a chapter listing for the movie, a brief essay written about the movie, a 900-page booklet advertising similar movies you WILL ENJOY (Such as Saw IV), and coupons which will save you $5 if you buy said movie FOUR TIMES. Well, this movie is having none of that. The case itself is completely bare, excepting the disc itself, which may be easily removed due to the sage decision by Sony Entertainment to only ship it in BROKEN CASES that do not actually hold the disc in place. Fortunately, this is all made up for by the fact that the back of the disc is SHINY. This will turn out to be the high point of the film (Excepting, of course, the continual bits of special effects which can only be described as COMPLETE, CONCENTRATED AWESOMENESS). The disc is then inserted easily into an available DVD player, which in this case doubles as an XBOX, and it can be watched by turning on the television. Unfortunately, this is a major mistake. You see, I live in New York City. This puts numerous constraints upon my living space, especially considering that my room is a shared venture (Though not if my GRANDMOTHER asks me about it).Therefore, the bedroom TV is extremely small. It more than makes up for this, though, by alerting everyone who overlooks it due to its diminutive stature that it is, in fact, present and plugged in by emitting an 85-decibel HUM any time I am foolish enough to turn it on (This is in stark contrast to our living room TV, which has good sound quality, but a tragic inability to get brighter than, say, a typical hallway closet, sans open door or lightbulb). This requires me to turn the volume up much louder than I would like, which actually isn't that bad a thing, as it helps me to drown out the sound of whatever movie is playing in my roommate's (Also tastefully named Mike) room, which will invariably be at a volume audible from NEPAL or OUTER SPACE, whichever is farther away. And thus begins an epic adventure.

Well, not quite begins. You know how a Disney/Pixar production begins with that cute lamp that hops around for a while before the screen finally just says Pixar? Same thing here, except replace the lamp with a white version of the WALMART™ SMILY FACE with eyes like this: ^ ^. Eventually it TURNS INTO A BOX (Of course it does) and a disembodied voice announces 'Showbox.' Presumably this is the name of a company involved in the production. I don't
care enough to check. We then have the opening credits. They feature Asian-ish letters in front of a background that the artist named "INK BOTTLE SPILLED ON CANVAS. TIME TO GET NEW CANVAS." A woman's voice explains an ancient Korean legend, which is probably relevant but not overly interesting. It concerns a woman born every 500 years who can turn a SERPENT into a DRAGON. If the dragon is good, there is (Presumably) much rejoicing. If the dragon is bad, they make a CRAPPY MOVIE about it. Or something. I probably should have taken NOTES. Anyway, while telling the legend the voice repeatedly says "MIGHTY POWER". That's right, the movie is in English, yet still reads like a poorly dubbed KUNG FU film. Sweet. Special effects costing more than the entire script cause the screen to read D-WAR. And: Cut to helicopter in California.

Apparently, the director was hoping for some kind of crossover hit or something here, as the movie is in English and LA. Long story short, that effort FAILED. Also, this scene features an INDIAN yelling at POLICE OFFICERS that 'The beast has risen,' a grammatically correct sentence that they still managed to MISTRANSLATE when they named the chapters. There's been some kind of disaster, which is conveniently being covered by a newspaper reporter who doubles as our hero, a man who looks like KEANU REEVES but lacks the same RANGE OF EMOTION. He then does a voiceover about something important while staring at a JADE NECKLACE. Whatever. This necklace will probably be important later on, but I don't want to give the filmmakers that much credit. KEANU stares BLANKLY AHEAD, and the scene ends.

Next in Part Two: I struggle not to SWEAR.

5 comments:

UncleRick said...

Uh, Mike, which "grandmother"? I may have some bad news for you...

HOLLA(R) said...

The other one. I would have elaborated, but I fear it would have disrupted the clarity and flow of the parenthetical. What?

lemming said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
lemming said...

This may not have to do with the post but...Mike have you noticed all your fowllers except one don't have a blog? You need some cooler fowllers.

UncleRick said...

Oh, that grandmother! Never mind! But don't underestimate that grandmother either...