Cowboys Versus Aliens

Jordan Bradt: One fine day, I met a movie entitled COWBOYS VERSUS ALIENS.  My dad bought the Blu-Ray disk for my mother because one of her favorite television sitcoms is THE BIG VALLEY.  Well, this movie is nothing at all like that show. For a wondrous compare and contrast list, please read on.

Character Development: TBV allows you to follow the Barkley family through their trials and tribulations.  In CVA, you sort of follow a group of men and one alien woman as they embark across the desert-area.  My favorite TBV character is Heath; in CVA, I hated them all equally.  Yes, I didn’t care enough about any one character to hate him or her more than the others.

Awesome Male Protagonist: TBV has Heath, the illegitimate Barkley son; he can do anything, and he’s sexy. He takes off his shirt a lot. Woohoo!  CVA has Jake; he can also do anything. Heath and Jake can both take out a man in a single swipe of their fist. Jake also took off his shirt a lot.  He’s buff, but I didn’t find him sexy or hot. 

Supporting Female Role: TBV has Audra, the young Barkley daughter.  She’s gentle and beautiful, sometimes flighty, but her golden heart always shines through. CVA has Ella, an alien disguised as a woman.  She stares. A lot.  She sacrificed herself at the end, so I guess she also has a golden heart.

Native Americans: Both the movie and the television show have Native American characters, who are sort of the bad guys, but also pull through when their help is needed. 

Mexicans: Again, both shows have them, sometimes as positive characters, sometimes as bad.

Outlaws: Both have lots of outlaws! TBV keep them as the bad guys.  The Barkleys come shining through to vanquish evil and save the day.  In CVA, the outlaws become the good guys and help terminate the aliens. 

Overall, while I adore science-fiction, I prefer TBV over CVA.  There’s something thrilling about a family struggling to survive through everyday trials in the 1800’s, as opposed to aliens trying to steal 1800’s American gold while operating on human victim.

LOL

Jordan Bradt:

SARCASM ALERT

I had the pleasure of watching the movie LOL, starring Demi Moore and Miley Cyrus.  I knew it was going to be awesome when it started in slow motion, and Miley’s voiceover announced that was because she and her friends are so cool.  That was further proven through the whole movie as they suffer no character development, just stay at the same level of supreme coolness.  Her name in the movie, Lola a.k.a. Lolz (can anyone say Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen Lola?), is just too mind-blowing to keep thinking about it, so I’m going to refer to her as Miley.

 

LOL is just…wonderful. It doesn’t even need a plot. Literally. There was no plot, but that was okay, because of all the awesomeness. There’s, like, this girl at Miley’s high school who is called the Post-It.  I mean, how could any nickname ever get any better than that?  Miley gets to go to Paris for a school trip via her French class.  She has his boyfriend, Chad, but he cheated, so she dumped him, but now he thinks she’s a whore.  There’s this other guy, Kyle.  They were both so incredibly hot that I had trouble telling who was who while watching the movie.  Then there’s this third guy who had this one really deep scene with Miley in her bedroom. Random Guy seemed interesting; I would’ve liked to see at least one more scene involving him.  The product placement was phenomenal.  The Pandora jewelry box – what teenage girls doesn’t want that?  The box of Trojan condoms – what teenage boy doesn’t bring the whole box to a party?

Oh, and Miley’s family is just incredible.  Her mom, younger sister, and her all bathe together, and discuss things while naked in the tub such as porn stars and Brazilian waxes.  Her grandmother gets drunk and lets Miley host a wild party.  Miley’s mom, Demi Moore, finds Miley’s journal, where whole new plot-lines are introduced, such as smoking pot and “loving” her female friends, but are never elaborated.  The best part of all is when Miley and Demi have sex (with different men in different countries) and the move keeps flashing back and forth between them. Who doesn’t want to see that?

Speaking of who doesn’t want to see things…who really wants to see this movie? Seriously?

SALT (Phillip Noyce, 2010)

Stephanie Bradt: Kennedy: Our nation’s first Catholic president. Obama: Our nation’s first black president. Lewis: Our nation’s first retarded president. More on President Lewis later.

SALT kind of confused the hell out of me, but only for a little while. There were about 50 different times throughout the film where I thought I understood what was going on. And then I said wtf. But, I guess that was how it should have been. I’m not saying being confused is a bad thing; my favorite television show was LOST, after all. At least with SALT, you can sit down afterward and figure it out. I think a second viewing would help.

Some positives:

•Angelina Jolie’s arachnologist (sp?) husband named his spider discovery “petebesti,” named after the Beatle that never was. The point was that while Pete Best would never be a famous Beatle, he would be a famous spider. Ha.
•I liked that Angelina’s husband isn’t hot. Because Angelina isn’t hot either (contrary to popular belief). They are great for each other.
•I liked how there was a brief Lee Harvey Oswald tie in. I love a good conspiracy theory, especially one involving JFK’s assassination.
•I like Liev Schreiber. He’s cool.
•I love how they just had to have the very first shot of Angelina as her wearing nothing but her underwear.

The negative that kind of ruined most of it:

I don’t know if this movie lived up to all the hype, but I thought it was pretty good. Except for one thing: Enter President Moron. IMDb says his name is President Lewis. It is really nice we are tolerant and want to represent all groups, but why make the President of the United States retarded? Actually, that is not the right word for it. I guess the guy is just a REALLY bad actor. (Sure enough, according to IMDb, this guy’s last five jobs were gigs on “One Life to Live,” “As the World Turns,” “All My Children,” “Guiding Light,” and “Baywatch.” I am serious. I swear-- this little discovery made my week). Anyway, national security is crumbling all around him and he just sits there like a deer in the headlights. Actually, more like a deer AFTER getting hit by a car. President Lewis’s advisor tells him how spies have infiltrated the American government and he just stares blankly with his bug eyes like, “Okay.” But really he just sits there. He is not distraught at all. He was not being calm under pressure. He was being calm like the news he just got was simply that the White House cook had burnt his toast or something. He acts like a toddler. He does not seem to understand or care that the country is being taken over by Russians. He just wants to know when he can go home and watch Muppet Babies.

Jordan Bradt: My dad came home with a movie the other day – SALT. It even came with a decorative piece of cloth depicting Angelina Jolie. This piece of cloth is a great present. You can do so much with it. A couple examples include draping it over the back of the couch, laying it on your bed, pinning it like a cape, and throwing it at people while yelling, “Salt!” It really is quite versatile. There are no loops to hang it from (although my mom plans to sew it into a flag for her pole out in front) and it is very thin, rather see-through in fact.

Okay, my dears, onto the movie. Evelyn Salt was amazing. Seriously. She could take out like 10 trained soldiers (a bit of an exaggeration) and they could barely touch her. The only serious injury I recall her getting was at the end, from another Russian spy. At the end, she sneaks into the spymaster’s house and destroys him, then blows everything up. Yes, she is apparently that good at her work.

There are all these Russian spies, and they can do incredible things. Since the movie is American, I felt like they should give more power to the Americans. The president depicted in the movie acted as if he had no idea what was going on. I kept thinking WTF. Her husband dies. She feels sad, but she lets him die. Again, WTF. The action was good. I must congratulate them on a unique plot. (I don’t watch too many action, but of those I’ve seen, this wasn’t quite like them) The bad things…well, I pointed them out above. This isn’t one of those movies I’ll watch repeatedly, which is sad since my family owns it. At least I have that really cool cloth, though.