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Movie Reviews | TV Reviews | Paranormal News
Caprica and BSG Movie Greenlight :
If you haven't heard yet, a prequel TV movie for BSG has been greenlighted and is slated to revolve around a number of the cylons before the events in Season four. Although details are sketchy, it will either revolve around the time before the cylon attack on Caprica or the missing time in Starbucks story arc. Our vote is for the former, since that missing time has likely already been accounted for in the last set of 10 episodes that Ron Moore has already filmed.

In addition to that news, the Caprica series "pilot" is close to being picked up for a full series and there are substantial rumors that the final episode of Galactica will run close to 3 hours long, bringing the total number of hours in the final season to 21 instead of 20. News as we get it.

THE HAPPENING....WHAT HAPPENED? :
We should have known when the decision was made not to put M Night's name in the title that something wasn't quite right in the land of The Happening. Yet the previews looked good and there was solid hype. And trailers showed a ton of action and potential for a great plot.

What the trailers didn't tell you is that all of the action shown and all of the action period occurs in the first 5 minutes of the film. The rest is an exercise in bad writing. There is always a twist in M Night's movies, always something you wouldn't suspect, but you can figure out The Happening in about a half hour. As for the twist, there isn't one, at least not one that shocks. In fact, on the way home from The Happening, I was thinking more of The Mist and how good that movie was. Characters are poorly developed and dialogue is just plain horrible. I am sorry, but when the end of the world is here and you are offered a hot god, you FREKKIN eat the hot dog and say thank you (you'll see what I mean).

I don't know what has happened to M Night, but he should step back and take a few years off, maybe do some television before putting out another movie. Both The Village and Lady In The Water were hampered by bad marketing campaigns and were both wonderful movies in our opinion, but those were his two opportunities to make his kind of movie. Then, as anyone will tell you, you've gotta make a movie that appeals to the masses and earns some money. Else there will be no more opportunities.

The Happening is neither enjoyable nor worth your $7-9 and is unfortunately barely rental quality. Sigh.

Steel Trap Sharpens the Saw :
If you are a fan of the SAW series of movies, like us, you probably think the same thing. Saw 4 sucked. Traps were unoriginal and the acting seems to be getting worse and worse. In short, they should really end the series. Or restart it.

Have our hopes been answered? Well, sort of. From Chicago Underground Film Festival Award-winning director, Luis Cámara, comes STEEL TRAP, the gruesome story of a vengeful masked killer hosting a unique party game that turns out to be deadly. Five pseudo-celebrities bored with a New Years Eve celebration on the top of an abandoned skyscraper jump at the chance of attending an exclusive V.I.P. party on the 27th floor. When the party is crashed by a vicious maniac, locking them in a maze of hell, you can imagine what happens. We won't ruin the plot, however, we do know that you fans of SAW will love it. Catch it on Blue Ray July 15th.

We Now Ruin Galactica...So Say We All :
Our staff is pretty crafty and we think we've got Galactica's end-game figured out after two huge BOMBS dropped in the May 9th episode. The first is that Kara will lead humanity to its end (already knew that) and that the final five are from the Earth, NOT from the 12 colonies.

What you say? Hear us out. Does it make one lick of sense that people in the twelve colonies would know legends about Earth, or know anything about the path to Earth. Just how did these legends reach the colonies. After the 13th tribe left for Earth they would have no further contact with anyone. Thus the inverse is true.

The original colony is Earth. The 12 other colonies came later, likely when Earth was ready to die. So Kara is leading humanity back to see how the human race originally died (ie earth), or "back to their end". Expect to find an abandonded earth riddled with a previous civilization and ready to repopulate. Likely we blew ourselves up a long time ago, but the radiation should be gone now...yippee.

The final five cylons age, we know that. We can also assume that they reincarnate. Thus they are really, really old and their memories are wiped with each reincarnation. Thus, they may be originally from Earth.

We are also told that everything that happens will happen again. Simple really. Man creates cylons. Man blows himself to hell. They move to the stars. Cylons learn how to create life (ie they create man). They blow themselves to hell or battle their creators. Colonies destroyed, they all go back to Earth. The cycle repeats. Who knows how many times this has happened.

Alien Seige to DVD: Still Looking for a Budget :
You know things aren't quite right when the first few sentences of a commentary track have the director stating that he came into the Scifi Channel with another idea and they handed him this one instead. Alien Seige, which aired in 2005 on Scifi, suffers from a lot of things, mostly a lack of budget really.

Set in a world where an alien race is forcing earth to give up millions of humans (and their blood) to cure a disease, the made for TV movie does not track any new ground. We've seen this kind of thing before, but the affects are ok and it does keep you fairly interested with a few battles and some interesting plot turns.

Unfortunately, a big turnoff is the lack of alien character design, and when we say a lack what we mean to say is there isn't any. The aliens look and act like humans except for a round dot on the side of their heads which is a glorified walkie-talkie. Apparently they have seen Star Trek but the device didn't feel comfortable on their chests or something. They say acting is done 99% with the face. If so, this choice is 99% wrong.

The movie revolves around a father trying to rescue his daughter from the aliens, but doesn't carry any emotional weight. The human race is being harvested and the acting implies a sense of urgency on level with running out of milk at the supermarket. The actors aren't emotionally vested in this production so it is really hard for the viewer to not follow that trend. DVD is available now at all major outlets and Amazon.com. Paraseek gives Alien Seige a 1 out of 5 (official site).

BANNED SAW TAPE SURFACES :
When we watched Saw 3, we were confused emotionally. Was this something we should be watching? At times we felt as though we should hide in a corner and call the police. The twisting rack was just too much and, whoa, well we are still freaked out.

Now Saw 4's trailer is banned from Comic Com and in the words of several reviewers, we want to know WTF is on that tape, besides of course JigSaw's brains coming out in full view. We won't ruin it for you more, but the full trailer is up finally at saw4.com.

We do hope the premise is better than version 3 which was more about the traps and less about the acting. We'll have to see. Regardless, we are freaked out already. And we can't look away...WTF.

FARSCAPE TO GET REVIVAL, SORT OF :
The Henson company was kicked in the balls with the cancellation of one of the top 5 science ficton shows of all time, Farscape. Now it appears they may be returning to take their balls back. The SCIFI channel has ordered 10 3-5 minute webisodes made by the original producers. No news on whether any of the original cast is signed up, but it is good timing seeing that half of the cast was on SG1 and that is cancelled.

Our advice for SCIFI, stop messing around. Make this revival real and order a real movie or a mini-series. Cause you didn't spend your money on Flash Gordon, that's for sure.

MXC Is Like Rock Candy, Right You Are Ken :
We recently got our hands on the 13 episode season-two set of MXC (Spike's Most Extreme Elimination Challenge). Sure we had seen all the episodes before, but this show is just so damn good, it feels like new. Harkening back to a time when I was held up in a temporary apartment, waiting for my family's new house to be built, it holds a special, messed up place in this reviewer's heart as the only thing that kept me alive. Like Mystery Science Theater, it just has that certain something.

Not one minute of this set is to be missed, or for that fact not watched 12 times. But the best parts are the extras. A complete original episode of "Takeshi's Castle" (the overseas reality show MXC was based on) shows that the original was just as funny as the dubbed version. Kenny and Vic, we barely knew ya! A much too short feature is also added on the making of the show (which by the way is made entirely in a room the size of our office kitchen). Longer is better, but it was great to see the voice actors. We know 10 years from now you will say "Hey, remember that show, I wish I could watch it one more time." Don't pass on these DVD's. We dare you to not pee your pants during the horse racing segments. A storming LET'S GO review of four out of five. (more info and ordering)

Looking Glass Wars Redefines Wonderland :
What does it take to get on the bad side of the Lewis Carroll Society? Well...quite a bit but when they get mad watch out. Read on for some interesting tid-bits as we sit down with Looking Glass Wars author Frank Beddor and discus sporks and mirrors. Very very cool (...continued).

Welcome to THE NEW WIRE! (logo design contest) :
In our quest to cover all media out there related to scifi, paranormal, horror or genre, we've launched this brand new extension of ParaSEEK exclusively devoted to media coverage and to making certain that our carpo-tunnel progresses. Over the next few months you will see continued divergance, as ParaSEEK takes a tighter focus on paranormal studies and ParaWIRE handles the rest. Be patient, our medication is on back order!

But we need your help. See that logo up there? We want the WIRE to have something new. So if your an artist who wants exposure contact us. Yeah, we'll give ya some goodies too.

Our Theory On Lost Holds as 2nd Cast Member Dies :
Usually you don't stand up and cheer (and do a dance in your PJ's) when a major character gets whacked from one of your favorite shows, but when you're trying to crack the lost code and you think you're winning, time for a little partying. See why we think we've got Lost at least partially figured out.

Pretend You're Us, Only Tiny Lawsuits, Promise! :
For the first time we've got our official press cap for sale. It's the same cap we wear to the conventions and to media events to prove that we do indeed have too much time on our hands. You can too...check out the logo store for this and other stuff. Look totally hot like us :)

Our Staff Proud of TAPS New Season :
A few weeks ago we wrote a piece hoping and praying that the powers that be on the Scifi Channel would not opt to change the format of Ghost Hunters. The fear was that because of ratings the editors of the show would do everything to make sure as much happened in the show as possible, aka ghosts popping out of every wall.

We are utterly pleased that TAPS has stayed true to form with many episodes coming up with Zero evidence. There is no tricky editing. And we are seeing quality up to par with season one. This show is truely about how to investigate ghosts NOT about showing them on camera at all costs. TAPS goes out of its way to debunk all case first, a philosophy shared with this website. It is clear that when this show was conceived TAPS went to the producers and said its our way or the highway. And their way works. If your not watching you should be. Now if we just can get the 25-or-so Tripping the Rift commercials per episode off we would be golden. Check out our archive for previous pieces.

Star Wars DVDs..You Buy Em, We Won't :
With episode 3 coming out soon, looking great btw, thought we would tackle a touchy subject in our opinion, the Star Wars DVD releases. As you may or may not know the DVDs are riddled with errors and frankly because of this the Paraseek staff won't view them or buy them. Not because they have errors, what version of SW doesn't? But because of the fact Lucasfilm maintains that the errors were done on purpose as if they are trying to use a Jedi mind trick on us. After buying two versions of the movies already, sorry we're immune. If the powers that be at Lucas are so perfect, then why does the French release of the DVDs not contain the same errors? Its simple really, little attempt was made to get things right this time around.

The main point of issue is the washed out Force battle music as the tie fighters sweep down in Ep 4. It sounds like a computer choked through a conversion process and no one noticed. See this website where you can hear the error and see all the changes to ep 4. Pretty cool site.

Our theory (and we have been wrong and RIGHT before): Lucasfilm had no intension of releasing a stable version here. During the last few years people were screaming for these DVDs and all we heard from Lucasfilm was that they did not have time to focus on these DVDs. To do them right, they would tackle them AFTER the prequel. Then suddenly from out of no where the DVDs are released. It is pretty good bet that someone in accounting spoke up, "hey, let's just put out a prelim DVD edition. Then when all the movies are finished we can go back and release all 6 in a final edition." After all you have bought these moves 3 times already, and you will again. They are right. The creation of these DVDs and the result is yet another ILM experiment. I guarentee in 3-4 years we'll have another version out, this time more expensive with all six films in tow, complete with new sound mixes, edits and likely CGI fixes for Jar Jar as well.

To each is own. As for us, we'll suffer through the video tapes for a while.

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DVD REVIEWS

Hannibal Rising

In this brutal tour Hannibal is sloppy and doesn't care about getting caught, and that is not the Lecter we have come to know. You just can't pull of Anthony Hopkins without Anthony Hopkins.

Throw in an opening 15 minutes of Nazi battles that could have taken 2 minutes and this one is a hard swallow. Our suggestion, view it as an unrelated movie to SOLL, otherwise you will not enjoy it. Staff rating: 2.5/5

MORE INFO

Dark Corners

Thora Birch has quickly become this decade's Christina Ricci making a name for herself in Ghost World and (the superb and freaky) The Hole. First time director and writer Ray Gower did one thing right by casting Birch, but unfortunately didn't provide her with a plot.

Birch plays two roles, one blonde and one brunette and it is up to the viewer to decide which is a dream and which is real while a killer stalks both. The problem is, the resolution promised throughout the film never materializes and the viewer is left frustrated. Dialog is sketchy and unpolished and there is virtually no chemistry through the cast. If you are fans of Birch, then give Dark Corners a try, if not then pick up a copy of The Hole which is the kind of horror this flick failed to bring to light. Staff rating: 2.0/5

MORE INFO


HUMAN STAINS

Our top reason to change species:

The Vatican has appointed a top cardinal to shoot down the "lies" in the Da Vinci Code. Its fiction dudes get over it. By going after it you are the ones making it real, not author Dan Brown.

While you're working on it though, might want to check into a well know book, called the Bible, which was assembled by Constantine who ripped out every page he didn't like.


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