Over the weekend, I managed to watch two films from Netflix… The Wicker Man starring Nicolas Cage and Turistas starring a bunch of nobodies.
Turistas took me a couple of days to get through. It wasn’t that it didn’t hold my attention. It was because I lead a busy and active lifestyle… Much like Pavarotti.
Turistas uses the age-old “fish-out-of-water” storyline (foreigners in a foreign land)… Take some English speaking tourists and toss them into rural Brazil where there’s no police presence to ensure their safety… Add in some unscrupulous bartenders who drug the tourists… Liberally add a couple of organ-stealing thugs… And there you have it. A boring film that takes too long to unsuccessfully develop the characters instead of getting to the business of killing and harvesting them.
Yeah… After about 20 minutes, I was yelling at the anyone on the screen to pick up a gun or grab a machete and start shooting or hacking. The film just lumbered onward and went nowhere. I couldn’t care less about the characters. I wanted something to happen.
The best scene was that of the underwater chase. The gringos got away from the compound, but were caught in a series of underwater caves. And I have to admit… All that breath holding got to me. That was good stuff! But overall, I had to give the film 2 out of 5 stars.
The Wicker Man wasn’t much better. It featured Nicolas Cage riding a motorcycle, swinging his helmet, running, bicycling, swimming, diving, walking, breaking and entering, punching women, flashing a badge, wearing suits, falling through barn lofts, traipsing through the woods, wearing a bear suit (?), and doing what he does best… Yelling in an overdramatic fashion.
And all of those things went absolutely nowhere. I sat through that horrible film and it simply didn’t payoff. I gave that joker 2 out of 5 stars as well.
The only redeeming thing that I received through Netflix was disc 5 of season 1’s The Wild, Wild West.
Although I LOVED the show when I was a kid… I’ve now have noticed all of the continuity errors and bad special effects. Well… I shouldn’t say bad… They just weren’t allowed a big budget because the show was WAY ahead of its time and besides… It was produced during the 1960’s.
It’s great cheesy fun. And like James Bond, Secret Service agent Jim West knocks his boots with all the ladies. And that raised a big question with me… He ends up rescuing and reforming many of the ladies from the wrong side of the law. Sure… They commit crimes against humanity and the US Government, but a few kisses and a friendly-natured epilogue… They’re released with their promise to “be good”. I just don’t get it.
Oh well… I suppose that’s TV. But then again, I can pretty much forgive anything with an exciting roll in the hay. So perhaps it is true to life.
And since some of you are interested in checking out the playlists of the mix tapes...
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