Tag: Alexa Vega

Welcome to the final day of Musical Week! Aww, sad, yes I know. Part of the reason I picked this week for a theme was because of the two musicals coming out, yes. The other reason is because I am on my honeymoon this week, and for the most part, musicals are set in worlds where people are happy and singing and dancing. Dancing is important. If there is no dancing, then you have Les Miserables and that is a sad musical.

But dancing can also be creepy. We learned that with the Thriller music video. Horror Musical isn’t a huge category. Stage Fright from this year attempted it, but it was also definitely a comedy for going for the happy musical + slasher movie elements. The only one I can think of that got really close was Repo! The Genetic Opera.

Oh well look at that. The Devil’s Carnival is done by the same people who brought us Repo! How quaint. I can’t believe how that segue came so naturally~.

In fact, a lot of the actors from Repo! are in this one as well. It is basically an unofficial and not at all related sequel to Repo!

Satan + Dancing = Horror musical.

The stories from The Devil’s Carnival are based upon Aesop’s fables. That isn’t subtle at all, because we have Lucifer (Terrance Zdunich) reading from the book to a kid. But at the start of the film, three people die. Ms. Merrywood (Briana Evigan) dies in a shootout with the police. John (Sean Patrick Flanery) has just lost his son and is about to slit his wrists. Tamara (Jessica Lowndes) was dealing with bad boys and got killed by an angry boyfriend.

And apparently they are all now in Hell!

The Ticket Keeper (Dayton Callie) runs this Hell/Carnival, where it uses demons and devils to teach those new residents their lessons. But you know, with circus themes and shit.

With such carnival employees such as The Painted Doll (Emilie Autumn), Wick (Alexa PenaVega), The Twin (Nivek Ogre), The Scorpion (Marc Senter), Hobo Clown (Ivan L. Moody), The Magician (Bill Moseley), and The Fool (Mighty Mike Murga), who wouldn’t have a good time?

This game is actually my favorite sort of foreplay.

The Devil’s Carnival is only an hour long, but it packs a lot of material and a lot of crazy shit into that hour. Anything more would definitely be pointless. The songs were both eerie and beautiful. There wasn’t a lot of time for talking either, as the story advanced through songs for the most part.

If I had one major complaint, it is that I thought we had repetitive songs. Not tunes or musical themes, but the songs themselves were basically saying the same thing a few times. I think twice this happened, where the plot/punishment was unfolding for the characters,through a song, then someone told the same story/fable in another song right after. It felt awkward. Like, stop talking about the Scorpion and the Frog. I don’t care that much.

Overall it was a really well put together story and the ending implied a lot more is to come. And there is! More importantly, it won’t just be a rehash of the first film with new people coming to Hell and new fables. No, they have grander plans in the underworld. The next movie, The Devil’s Carnival: Alleluia! It will be a full length production and should be coming out in sometime 2015.

I can wait, totally, a good while. Saying “I Can’t Wait” would be dishonest. But a part of me is pretty excited to eventually see where this story goes.

Machete started out as a fake trailer in front of the Grindhouse movies, Death Proof and Planet Terror. Robert Rodriguez decided that the fake trailer needed to be made into a real movie and Machete was born! A movie that was made on purpose to be bad, it had plenty of potential, but to me just felt boring. I wasn’t impressed.

I basically forgot about the franchise until they announced both a sequel and a third film coming down the pipelines. The sequel, Machete Kills just hit theaters, but the third film really caught my eye thanks to its title of  Machete Kills Again…In Space. With a name like that, this franchise can’t be that bad!

Yeah, it looks like he is about to kill it here.

After the death of his partner (Jessica Alba), Machete (Danny Trejo) finds himself at the wrong end of the law, blamed again for a murder he did not commit. To get out of the jam, the President of the United States (Charlie Sheen / Carlos Estivez) has asked him to go on a suicide mission into Mexico. His mission? To stop revolutionary/mad man Mendez (Academy Award Nominated Demian Bichir) from sending a nuke straight to Washington DC.

Sure, a simple enough mission, but there are a lot of factors that stand in his way. Million dollar bounties, crazed heart monitors, multiple personality disorders, priests seeking redemption, a hitman called El Camaleon, brothels, space scientists that know the future, a madam with a grudge, former friends, and clones stand between him and his goal.

There are so many celebrities, trying to list them all would be insane, but I will do it anyways. Telling you their role in the film almost seems like a disservice, and plus, you probably wouldn’t believe me. The movie includes Mel Gibson, Amber Heard, Michelle Rodriguez, Sofia Vergara, Lady Gaga, Antonio Banderas, Walton Goggins, Cuba Gooding Jr., Alexa Vega, and Vanessa Hudgens!

One of the best “jokes” in this movie is having Alexa Vega in close to nothing. Since he worked with her on Spy Kids 12 years ago.

As I mentioned before, Machete was trying to make a good/entertaining “bad movie,” in honor of all the poor quality B-movies of the 70s/80s. It is pretty hard film type to make correctly, the last one I really enjoyed being Black Dynamite. The first film had a lot of appropriate jokes for genre, but the overall plot and tone bored the crap out of me.

Machete Kills corrects these mistakes and more. First off, it was actually entertaining. Over the top action from start to finish and nonsensical plot lines that will cause you to stare at the screen in confusion. Normally that would sound terrible, unless terrible was the goal, in which case it sounds great! Machete Kills put a lot more detail into purposefully editing the film in a sloppy way to increase its humor potential. The film has a rampant disrespect for obeying the natural laws of our reality: where a broken car can drift 500 miles in mere hours, and where several days can pass in only 20 minutes.

Most of the jokes are smaller references or in the background, outside of the absurd characters themselves. Despite how outrageous everything is, the characters themselves for the most part are incredibly serious. After all, their lives are on the line. The movie sports a lot of death and violence, which is all packaged in creative ways.

Machete Kills improved a lot from the first film, but I think it still has a lot of untapped potential that it just hasn’t reached yet. Assuming the third film actually gets made, it might finally cross into the “So Bad, It’s Amazing!” territory that the series is striving for. As for now, it is not a must watch, but more of a watch eventually (maybe) type of movie.

Wooo. Here is something I have been putting off for awhile. Repo! The Genetic Opera.

I like musicals. And well, this is still something different. But I figured I was going to watch Repo Men soon (maybe), so why not watch this also soon. I knew this wasn’t a normal movie, probably something made with the intention of being a “cult classic” right off the bat. But damn it, Giles is in it, so I had to watch it.

Only took me like, two years.

Singing and gore. Pretty standard today.

In this futuristic world (2050s) Organ Donation is now being treated like a car loan. Great offers, most people can get a heart when they need it, no money down. But they have to pay their bills. If they don’t keep up with payments? Well, their organs will get repossessed back.

Also lots of plastic surgery too.

Head of the company GeneCo. is Rotti Largo (Paul Sorvino) but he is dying soon. He has three children, Pavi (Nivek Ogre) who wears a different face on his face, Luigi (Bill Moseley) who has anger problems, and Amber (Paris Hilton) who is addicted to surgeries and the painkillers involved. Anyways, bad and evil family, and he doesn’t trust his kids. They do shady contracts with their organs too.

The Repo Man (Anthony Head) is forced into killing others and taking their organs for GeneCo, because he is being blackmailed by Rotti Largo. The killing and organ stealing is also legal. The Repo Man thinks he killed his wife before child birth, trying to cure a disease for her, but he was set up by GeneCo.

Because of all of this, and his shame, he has trapped his daughter in his house for her whole life, making her think she had the same disease and that she could die if she goes outside. Shilo (Alexa Vega) goes outside anyways, causing a lot of problems. Rotti Largo was only mad because he was dating her mom before she left him for the Repo Man. Operas are dramatic.

There is also Blind Meg (Sarah Brightman) who is no longer Blind, thanks to GeneCo! She is a singer, and thinks that she can retire and it just be okay. There is another character called The Gravedigger (Terrance Zdunich), who I felt was pretty much a narrator like character.

But yes. Main plt? Rotti Largo is still pissed, and wants to get more revenge before he dies.

And the gravedigger is also a pill pusher.

So, this was definitely a weird movie.

As it is more of an opera than a musical, a lot more singing happens instead of just normal talking. Singing transitions between actual songs. None of the songs I can really even think of how to sing. Very…well, weird.

It is also not the finest display of singing talent. It had its moments, but a lot of it was just talk/singing.

This was another movie where I wasn’t sure what I thought about it after I watched it. Was it just okay while being super weird, or did the super weirdness make me like it a lot? Definitely didn’t hate it. I loved the little things they did to create their world, and the comic book back story telling of certain events.

It felt weird to be over “so soon” at the end though. Felt like a TV show worth of potential plot, and its obviously just a one shot movie. I also liked the ending, or at least what was left available for the viewer.

Ahhh, fuck it. Originality gives it the higher rating.

Spy Kids: All The Time In The World! Yeah! The Forth Spy Kids Movie! I will let you know that I did my research before this movie. I “watched” all three Spy Kids movie the week before this one, just so I could “get” it all. After all, the poster confused me. Jessica Alba and Joel McHale? That’s weird. They aren’t in the other movies. It also said the “Spy Kids” from the previous three movies were in it, but not on the poster. Some other jerk kids.

But unfortunately, the other three movies don’t matter for this one.

Shocking, I know.

Plot? Uhh. Time! Someone has the ability to speed up time and time travel and other shit. Chaos ensures! Instead of adapting to the changing of time (despite not aging faster, just shorter days) people flip out about deadlines approaching. I think eventually they are supposed to freeze, because time is going so fast? Thats vague. Right.

Jessica Alba! She is a spy! And pregnant. After stopping crime on the way to her delivery, she retires. She marries Joel McHale who has two kids already in his past marriage. In fact, the kids are aged appropriately to be called kids for a least a few films. Handy right?

Joel is not a spy. But he is a fictional / real spy hunter on TV? It is confusing. Like, he has a TV show, I thought it was fake, but it could also be a real life documentary thing, like all of those dumb shows, following around jobs. I can’t believe people watch it though, since he doesn’t do anything? As far as I can tell.

Blah blah blah. They have to become spies accidentally. Also a talking British robot dog. It is Alexa Vega‘s fault, since she obviously thinks kids should be spies. The head of the spy agency is Jeremy Piven (but acts nothing like Ari Gold). Eventually Daryl Sabara shows up too, to help. Dude keeps retiring and rejoining (based on Spy Kids 3).

So yeah. That is about it. Cool new gadgets. Cool new set of kids. Cool new way to make more movies and money grab. The story was okay, full of normal kid super hero cliches. But making the Baby randomly powerful and a spy too was just too much. The ending was super corny too. Also, super-baby looked ugly as shit. Just sayin’.

Out of the other Spy Kids movies, I’d rate 1 and 2 a 1, but Spy Kids 3 was a solid 2. It involved going into a video game to save the world. Despite the fact that the creators made it seem like they’ve never played an actual good game before, it had a good enough story, and funny movements to be an okay movie.

This one does not.

Probably because the new chick has those dead eyes that look into your soul.

I didn’t realize (despite the title) that this movie was also very spanish like. It was kind of vague about actually where the main girls are from, but they are Latina in nature. The story is actually based on the movie Sense and Sensibilitly (yes it was a book first, leave me alone, I didn’t read the book). I didn’t know it would actually try to have a famous plot to it, I just saw it as a cheesy romantic comedy that could have probably been a made for tv movie. True story, it used to be called Sense and Sensibilidad. Yuck!

The movies main stars are Camilla Belle and Alexa Vega. Wait, Alexa Vega? From Spy Kids? Well. She got hotter.

Also starring… Fez From That 70’s Show?

Vega, in dress. Fez, looking like Enrique. Damn Fez.

Despite having Fez, which makes it kick ass, it did still just feel like a made for TV movie. The other main male lead was the older debater from Rocket Science. Fez played the role of Alan Rickman in this movie (again joke. He played the same “character” Alan Rickman played.) and it probably won’t ever happen again, until we get a reboot of Die Hard.

Fez as Hans Gruber? I can see it.

At the funeral of their dad, it all seemed like a joke to me. No one seemed to look that sad, like the realized this was a lame movie and that they shouldn’t even try.