Marcus Can Blog

Question: What is the sum of adding a caffeine-powered and over creative CGI artist with a sleep-deprived, and de-motivated scriptwriter? Answer: 2012. Yes, you read it right. You get the movie, 2012.

This is another movie (the other one was Transformer 2) where my wife and I had to leave our little boy under the care of our trusty neighbor just so we can watch what the movie is all about and if it does stand up to the hype it has stirred. The movie, just as its trailer promised, have spectacular destruction effects of biblical proportion, but, its story didn’t do justice to my months of anticipation as I find it lacking sense and substance. 2012’s special effects appear as if it was made ahead of the storyline and that everything in the movie plot was created as an after thought (and needless to say, acting as a result is mediocre to fair).

However impressed I was with the special effects doesn’t mean though that it comes without obvious flaws. One just can’t help but spot at least a couple of annoying details that its producers desperately tried to pass off thinking that delivering an end-of-the-world movie will make one just sit back, relax (or panic in this case) and take it for what it is. They’re wrong. Gone are the days when audience will believe that the world will end just because something beneath the earth has ran amuck. People nowadays are now keener than before – thanks to Hollywood over-exposure and Mythbusters TV series. So it really would have been great if the producers have included details that should have come logically based on the premise that the earth’s core has become super hot. Like, why were there no simultaneous exploding volcanoes to imply an overheated core. Or why was it that despite the unfathomable gaping cracks, the other side of the globe wasn’t shown as feeling at least some sort of tremor. Likewise, if this whole thing was indeed based on the Mayans, it would have been striking if it was explained (through its Tzolk’in calendar) in part how their civilization, no matter how primitive, arrived at such accurate prediction. And so on and so forth. And more whys and more ifs.

Of course, it would have been in vain if the 2.5-hour movie didn’t conjure some kind of reflection on its audiences. For sure everyone inside the cinema started to think about the whole thing in between scenes. It is just inevitable to think what will it be really like if this unprecedented scale of destruction happens all of a sudden – like tomorrow. How will I react? Should I just stay put or take chances by driving waywardly over road fissures and collapsing structures; besides breaking traffic rules will be the least of my worries and jumping the car over a crevasse won’t matter anymore. Who will I save first? Who will save me? Where will I get one billion euro to be among those lucky beings inside the modern Noah’s ark? Will I go for REM’s It’s the end of the world or The Killer’s Everything will be alright as my last-day-on-earth song? Now isn’t that just tough. Anyway, if the Mayans are right, we still have 3 more years to go…let’s just hope they’re wrong so we can have another movie to laugh at come 2013. But what if they’re indeed really right…

Picture credit: 2012’s Official movie site

Mood: 2/10 Honks! (The hot peppermint mocha coffee I had inside the cinema was great.)

If there’s one cable TV channel I instinctively choose to partner with our couch (and my unconscious effort to gain weight), it would be The Discovery Channel. Over the years, I’ve come to love the programs it has been showing.  I can even endure re-runs played the nth time and still get awed and surprised every time I see it. I don’t call it short memory retention; I just consider it both an entertaining and learning experience.

Discovery has been like a drive-thru movie (we see of course only in the movies)that my wife and I loves whenever we’re home. It’s like a subliminal message has been planted over our brains that whatever mood (yes! Whatever) we’re in, we just appreciate the fact that we’re in front of the boob tube absorbing whatever show it feeds us. It is in this channel that we come to love the mood swings of the Teutuls of the Orange County Choppers, learned the art of survival with Bear Gryll’s Man vs. Wild, realized why the king crabs are such pricey meals after watching Deadliest Catch, understand how ordinary things came to be in How It’s Made and of course, how can I forget the Mythbusters.

Considering me as a fan of conspiracy theories, urban legends and of any myths around, the Mythbusters has been like a How-To book to me. It is TV’s version of howstuffworks – you watch it when you want to confirm something. You watch it when you want to know if one myth is plausible or busted. I once told my wife that I’d prefer it as my background while at home over the FM radio stations. MB is just like music to my ears.

And finally after weeks of anticipation, after all the hype and the wait for another new Discovery channel show that will complement my favorites, Smash Lab debuted this week.  And despite still lacking sleep (coming from a graveyard shift) together with the cool rainy weather outside, I was able to resist the call of our comfy bed to stay stuck to it. Instead I glued myself in front of the TV to welcome the show Smash Lab.

But like any myths in Mythbusters, I was soon like Adam calling it busted just as the myth is told. I was nowhere in the middle of Smash Lab premier when I saw myself in the mirror yawning not because of the lack of sleep, but because of sudden realization that the show is a total bore. Other similarly predictable boring series suddenly began playing inside my mind:

·         Lost – what do you expect but lost people who get to wear new set of clothes every episode.

·         Prison Break – want a clue what this is all about? Duh!

·         Numbers – I hate this show just as I hate math. I would even kneel wherever I am if I one day I will read in the papers an FBI/NBI investigator plotting complex mathematical calculations to pin point a criminal. Until that time comes, this show for me is Zero.

·         Sex and the City – It’s nothing but promiscuity advertised. (But frankly, I get turned on just by the sight of Sarah Jessica Parker.)

So that’s how I got lost in Smash Lab – watching it reminded me of the other shows I hated and it reminded me to include it in that list. I find it a total waste of budget, talent and not to mention concrete. The premier episode is about stopping cars using aerated concrete added to existing barriers and lane dividers – which all of the experiments ended in a pathetic and pretentious shout of success. The show just fall short of convincing Mythbusters fans (like me) to pack up and let Adam, Jamie, Grant, Kari and Tory be a thing of the past. As for first impressions, which could last, this show is BUSTED.