Be Kind, Please Rewind

He’s a Red Tape Dispenser. He’s the…

Vidiot

I make policy makers. First up…

Week of November 29, 2013

Red 2

The worst thing about retiring from espionage is no one wants to hear your secretly recorded conversations anymore.

Luckily, the girlfriend of the ex-spy in this action movie is interesting in his transcriptions.

While former CIA Black-ops specialist Frank Moses (Bruce Willis) is content with domestic life, his sadistic squeeze Sarah (Mary-Louise Parker) isn’t.

Fortunately for her, all that changes when Frank and his friend Marvin (John Malkovich) are classified as terrorists.

Hunted by MI6 (Victoria (Helen Mirren), Russian secret service (Catherine Zeta-Jones) and an assassin (Lee Byung-hun), the triad try to attain a scientist (Anthony Hopkins) with knowledge of a lost WMD before corrupt CIA agents do.

A phantasmagoria of reality defying gunfights, this obligatory sequel to the original retains its clever cast as well, but negates to thaw-out its contrived Cold War plot.

Incidentally, the best way to defeat a Russian army is with gay Olympic figure skaters.  Yellow Light

 

Jobs

Due to the millions who’ve been rundown by motorists on their iPhones, Steve Jobs is comparable to Stalin.

Mind you, his colleagues in this biography would liken him more to Hitler.

Gaining admiration for calligraphy, college dropout Steve Jobs (Ashton Kutcher) applies his knowledge to the burgeoning computer market.

Turning his friend Steve Wozniak’s (Josh Gad) pet project into the Apple 1, they, and some friends (Lukas Haas, Ron Eldard, Eddie Hassell, Victor Rasuk), then assemble its successor the Apple II.

However, Jobs can’t handle the success, and soon he alienates his partners, his shareholders, and his daughter from his life.

The Cliff’s Notes version of the iPod creator’s life, Jobs barley skims the surface of the egomaniacal genius. 

And the while the supporting cast contributes greatly, they are undercut by Kutcher’s clumsy imitation.

Furthermore, its deceptive title humiliated all those who showed up at the theater looking for employment opportunities.  Red Light

***The Blog of War***

 

WarGames

If the future of warfare is to be fought via computers, does that include gay computers?

Unfortunately, this cyber-thriller doesn’t ask or tell.

Scouring phone lines to find new video games, computer whiz David Lightman (Matthew Broderick) comes across a game titled Falken's Maze, which he inevitably hacks.

Unbeknownst to him, the digital diversion is actually a NORAD defense operating system that simulates war scenarios.

Engaged, the supercomputer enacts a missile attack from the Soviets that puts a NORAD engineer (Dabney Coleman) on the defensive.

To impede the processor from instigating a nuclear war, David must locate its creator (John Wood) and convince him to hit control-alt-delete.

Dated by today’s standards, WarGames is still an entertaining blend of Cold War espionage and early-1980s computer hacking that was years ahead of its time - and created a new sub-genre.

Thankfully, the only combat computers accommodate nowadays are vapid celebrity Twitter wars.

He’s Selfie Destructive. He’s the…

Vidiot