Underworld

I saw it twice in cinema, right before I moved to the states. If I could look like any woman, it would be Kate Beckinsale. She is a rare combo of long/lean and still perfectly curvy. Like Giselle and Scar-Jo had a perfect clone and poured her into Trinity's outfit from Matrix1. Never mind that Selene uses 8 magic sunlight bullets for every 1 she actually needs or hits with. What was that with their being priceless?

That's me.

Billy says he would too. It's good we have similar
taste. Luckily, he thinks I actually look like the suck-up hench-vampire, Erika, played by Sophia Myles, whom I did for Halloween one year.

Remember when thin eyebrows were what girls plucked for, and when every boy went out for shiny black trench coats. Ah, those were they days. When vampires were decadent killers. They were pale and angry, not masturbatory stalkers.

There's something to be said for milking that part of the human psyche with fantasy characters

Underworld was the first serious badass movie that was anywhere near as cool as The Matrix. Underworld melds the green color filters, steamy alleys and grimy NY apts, over-exaggerated reflexes, with Anne Rice  classic mythology, Marilyn Manson music video imagery (not to mention a Queen of the Damned type of soundtrack), plus some weird science (no, not Weird Science). Bullets made from sunlight and quicksilver that bonds with blood. It adds in Xmen bullet-from-skull removal, Blade type intricacy of weird metal-scroll-work, Event Horizon blood-work, even a good Buffy back hand from time to time. The three main characters all having the same Gavin Rosdale haircut with that classic "wet look" coined in St Elmos Fire.

It even has a couple of movie firsts/bests: it was the first time I saw someone's neck get crunched, and some ones face get sliced. And to this day it's best Werewolf transformation I've ever seen. The crunching, the scary realism, how little they look like either wolves or humans.

It's one of those SFX cult movies that pulls together all the favorite nuggets into one glorious bonanza.

And it has more great narratives than most are crazy enough to plum for: Conspiracy Theory, Dynastic/Devoted Son, 2 fully developed Forbidden Love stories, and a great Frankenstein narrative. Thank goodness it (also like The Matrix) has two vapid follow ups, or the writers wouldn't even know what to do next.

While it goes out on some creative vamp limbs, it's kept in great control with offhand empathy like Selene's "You've taken a good knock to the head" to Michael. The fact that the whole war is

Michael Sheen, so poignant.

explained in two understandable lines from Lucien: "we were the day light guardians of the vampires. I was born into servitude." It's brilliant, and understated.

On that writing note, lets consider some great characters.

1. Craven, who conspires with the Lycans for personal gain, and then betrays the (wholly sympathetic) leader out petty fear and insult
2. Erika, who is so self servin' she doesn't even see where the interests cross each other.
3. Viktor, who stands up to his sociopathic principals in understandable ways, and strangles a Lycan with his bare hands. Oh, and he has a broad sword. 
4. Lucien, owner of the secondary FL, and cuts off his own tat in order to prove his death. 
5. Kahn, the devoted head of security and Q character. 

Writers Len Wiseman and  Kevin Grevioux don't mince arond too much with over or under editing or explanation. There's mention of "coven" and "Viktor" and "Amelia" and threats about past events -- but who knows how past. For a kid growing up on the XFiles this was cinematic broccoli. 

Add in killer acting performances by that guy from Lock Stock, Bill Nighy and Michael Sheen, and you have yourself my favorite vampire movie ever. This is one moment I just can't avoid the bias. It has plot holes and I don't wanna hear it. This movie is beautiful.

Biggest disappointment: The death of Amelia. She's mentioned with

Why, Amelia, why....?

reverence by so many other characters that you know she's a consummate badass. But she's only on screen for two heart beats before a single Lycan pounces on the roof of the train car, and we're just supposed to assume her and the whole entourage were not good enough at killing Lycans to  get through this? At the very least, that necklace of hers is made of silver, so the Lycans couldn't have bitten through it. I'm just saying, Amelia, you're wearing a malleable boomerang/ninja star there. I don't believe she should have died.

The Avengers

I'm confused by The Avengers. I can't tell if I've seen them all, or not. Generally, I can out nerd some of the nerdiest fellows in a software design company (where I spend most of my days) and can shoot a nerf gun better, and have well formed opinions on why the gatling feature on nerf just does not work. I went three days trying to remember the word "tauntaun" and almost cried because I couldn't finish, in my head, a throwaway line of Han Solo "Then I'll ride out on _______!"

But I can't remember if there are three Avengers movies already out... is this the fourth? Why are people calling Black Widow "a whore"? Did she bang anyone yet? As far as I remember there was some camraderie between her and Hawkeye, but nothing really sexual. She kissed Captain America on an escalator, but that was a classic spy move, and she didn't make "a move" on him at all after the fact.

Was that in the third one?

No! Clearly, duh, that was Winter Soldier..

Silly poet, flix are for nerds!  For, I am wise and learned in the ways of the nerd, but I have never actually passed. Stick me in a comic book shop, and every clerk, even the goth/hipster chick who looks like me knows that.

It doesn't matter anyway. The Avengers movies are made for me, not the nerds. They are blockbusters which don't force glaring cliche, but unroll inevitably through them -- to the point where you don't even notice they are cliches.

This one, whatever it is in sequence, will be getting my money. It's colorful, and I love Samuel L. Jackson and Scarlett Johansson. If Robert Downey Jr. hosted the home shopping network, I'd be broke. I dislike that lady playing Hill; she's not a military leader, she's a stick. Or a segue: Can't be gotten rid of, and mechanically always there.