Neill Blomkamp's "Elysium"... First Images and What Not

Class warfare seems to be the theme of the day whether it is real life or that of Hollywood productions, so it should come to no surprise that the Sci-Fi genre is going to follow suit with Matt Damon’s new flick “Elysium”.

The film centers around an orbital space station named -surprisingly, Elysium- where the rich seem to live the life as they always have for centuries, while they orbit around the an apocalyptic 22nd century diseased ridden Earth. Damon plays the central character Max, an ex-con who is trying to get up to the space station because he is dying, and he is given a mission that will, hopefully, not only save his life but equality to the world and people as a whole.

“Elysium” Also stars Jodie Foster as Secretary Rhodes, an evil and twisted government official that will stop at nothing to enforce Elysium’s anti-immigration laws and so in effect keeping the luxurious lifestyles that the rich have come accustom too… oh, yes, the have-nots so want to be part of the haves.

Sound familiar?

It should, also, come to no surprise that “Elysium” was written and directed by “District 9’s” Neill Blomkamp who based a lot of that film on the way the South African government treated blacks and Apartheid. So, I believe, a lot of what “Elysium” rings with is Arizona and their immigration laws (and I believe a lot of Secretary Rhodes’ character can be said comes from Arizona’s governor). After reading the over-all plot synopsis, it seems that we have been down this route of sociopolitical ideas before (Think George Romero’s zombie films, “Escape from New York” (John Carpenter), even that of the “Resident Evil” franchise, to name a few).

Do we need another film like this? One that appears to be -a much better and grittier, but sort of the same premise- “Judge Dredd” meets “Total Recall” retread? I don’t know about you but I for one is getting a little tired of it. But it might be fun to see Matt Damon back to a grittier, tough guy role in the realm of Bourne.

Originally slated for a March release, but it appears that it might get pushed until August.

Update April 10th, 2013

Here is the first trailer for the film. It looks it'll hit theaters on August 9th

"Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park" My Tenth Must See Pick for the Halloween Season

Sandwiched between the pot smoking, acid dropping love in’s of the 1960’s and the cocaine fueled rage of the 1980’s, the 1970’s proved to be one fucked up decade. Hence today’s installment of Halloween madness, “Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park”.

Originally made for television, before anyone thought about something called Mtv, by NBC then later put in theatrical rotation outside the US where it finally got repackaged and put out on VHS;  Part “Scooby Mystery” part “Westworld” and all Rock Opera, “Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park” is a cult fav amongst Kiss fans.

The movie opens and we, the viewer, find Melissa (Deborah Ryan) and her boyfriend Sam (Terry Lester) enjoying a day at Magic Mountain Amusement Park. It is just your usual day of sunshine and lovebirds, that is until Sam gets the gumption to investigate the weird and strange acting park engineer, Abner Devereaux (Anthony Zerbe), who is creating a new attraction of cybernetic creatures for the park (think Frankenstein’s Monster and Dracula). Regrettably for Sam he is caught snooping in places he is not wanted and subsequently turned into a mindless cyborg himself.

Meanwhile, park owner Calvin Richards (Carmine Caridi), faced with a failing business plan and budget crunch diverts Devereaux’s much needed cash flow from the cyborg project and hires Kiss to perform at the park. Thinking that they will bring the kids and the cash. A non-too-happy Devereaux argues with Richards about the money to no avail. That is until a group teenage bikers sabotage one of the rides and nearly kills the riders. An outrage Richards blames Devereaux for the incident and fires the head engineer who then vows revenge upon Richards, the park, and Kiss who Devereaux blames most of all for his lost project funds.

The first step in Devereaux’s evil plot for revenge is to send a Kissbot in the form of Gene Simons to roam around the park destroying things. But when Kiss is questioned by authorities no action is taken against them and  the concert goes on as planned. Now an even more pissed off Devereaux sends his monstrous creations after the band and when Devereaux has Kiss locked up tight in his evil laboratory, Devereaux sends his Kissbots to the concert in place of the band in hopes if they start playing the wrong songs that it will entice the crowd to riot.

Oh know, what will Kiss ever do!

So grab a bottle of Jack and a bowl of acid and pull yourselves up to TV and immerse yourself into “Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park”. You won’t be disappointed. Well, that is, unless you are on the acid. If not then you’ll probably laugh your ass off.

Until next time…