I've gone Rogue (Live Movie Blog)

Hello again folks. Wife is gone for the night at some kind of girl's night which I assume involved lingerie pillow fights, and the baby's sleeping, so I need something to do. Tonight we're going to be tackling yet another masterpiece of American Cinema, and we're staying with the Crocodile theme. This time we're going to take in Rogue, a flick about "stranded riverboat passengers who become fodder for a monstrous crocodile." Sounds pretty damn good to me.

I will say that I'm a little worried about this one. Unfortunately, this might end up being an actual good movie, which ruins all the fun. I say this because it is rated a 6.6/10 on IMDB.com, which is off the charts high for this kind of movie. People are usually idiots, but the kind of idiots who don't spot the fun in crappy, cheesy "monster" type movies, so I'm worried this is a serious movie. It also won an award for best visual effects in Australia (and was nominated for a writing award), and was nominated for best limited release horror movie by Fangoria.

Or maybe I'm looking at this all wrong, and I should be excited that there might be another movie about a giant creature killing people with good writing and good special effects. I don't know. Let's just watch and find out.

- We open with several panning shots of the African wilderness set to generic African religious chanting. Seriously, you can already tell this movie had an actual budget. And within 20 seconds a croc just ate the crap out of a wildebeest that shouldn't have gotten that close to the water. I'm officially pulling back my reservations, and now actively hoping this is a good movie. We're off to a very good start.

- Our main character just arrived, and he's played by that guy from Alias and also from Never Been Kissed which I realize I just admitted to have watched. If only there was a button on this computer to push to make things I type go away. Oh well, I guess I'm stuck for now.

- I think this is supposed to be in Africa, but Alias guy just rolled into a general store populated entirely by southern stereotypes, including cranky old white guy, cranky old black guy, and young cajun guy. And they say things like, "Yah, it's gonna be a scorcha out thah today." Hopefully this isn't Africa.

- Old white guy has a pet pig in the store. No chance this is Africa, it's definitely the great American South. Which means apparently Louisiana has wildebeests now. Who knew?

- Oh, now I get it. They're in Australia. Australia is kind of like a combination of the deep south and Africa (with a little bit of Dusty Rychart thrown in) so I am good now. It would be pretty sweet if Dusty got chomped by a croc. I'm just saying.

- I should clarify that this is the movie Rogue, not anything about the X-Men character Rogue, who was played by Anna Paquin, who is not only very attractive but also starts in the series True Blood on HBO, as I mentioned before but must write again. Seriously, just watch it. And this calls for another picture of Anna Paquin, which I think puts her in second place for being pictured on this blog next to Audrina. Anyway, here:

And just for kicks, I'll throw in a little Audrina -

That was fun.

- FORESHADOWING - Tour guide chick (everyone is on a tour now - on a Riverboat) said, "The Northwest Territory has the largest concentration of salt water crocs in the world." I bet one shows up now - it's obvious thanks to the quote. Well, that quote and the movie's plot summary above. Incidentally, there are like twenty people on this cruise. Since I can pretty much already guarantee that Alias guy and Tour Guide chick are going to be the final two survivors (they're already flirting like drunk freshmen at their first keg party), that means we are in for a whole lot of killin'. Excellent.

- Hm. It's a croc-watching tour. And we were just informed that "crocs can learn your routines and anticipate what you're going to do." Bet that comes up again later.

- RIP Billy Mays. I work for a company whose products he endorsed, and there's a life sized cardboard cutout standup thing of him in our office. Brings a tear to my eye every day now. I'll get by. Don't worry about me. You stay strong.

- I taped this off HBO during a free movie weekend, so that means it could have nudity. And it does. Naked hairy male ass. Sweet. From Australian rednecks, who proceed to harass the tour as only drunken rednecks can. I told you Australia was half-deep south.

- If I can sound gay (well, gayer) for a minute, the scenery in this movie is breathtaking. I've always wanted to go to Australia so I could get chomped by a shark at the Great Barrier Reef, but now I want to go also so I can get chomped by a croc in the Northwest Territories.

- Our tour saw a distress flare in the distance and went to check it out, finding only an overturned fishing boat. Then, of course, they were attacked by something, knocking the boat out of control and forcing it to crash on the beach of a convenient island. The lesson of course, is to never help anybody ever.

- Ha ha. Stupid dog got eaten by the croc. Awesome. Dogs are dumb.

- Wait. Nevermind. It was a person, not a dog. They didn't really show anything though (note: we still haven't seen the croc, taking a nice page out of the Jaws playbook) so I guess I got confused. That and the fact that I'm only paying half attention and the guy's name was Everett. I just assumed when the lady was screaming that name that it was a dog, because whose name is Everett? Just like the name Toby. Only dogs are named Toby. Or Max. Or Rex.

- Here come the rednecks to save the day. Or, act like drunken retards and get eaten by a croc. You guess.

- The new plan is somehow string a rope across the water from the island to the safe area or whatever in order for everyone to shimmy across. Of course, someone has to swim the rope over first. I actually hope he makes it, because I've been to Gatorland Zoo in Florida, and saw a different movie crocodile jump like thirty feet in the air, so this would be like corn on the cob to our rogue.

- Well, he made it and got the rope, and unfortunately the writer missed a golden opportunity to have the croc jump up and eat people. What they did instead was have the rope break, and the three people on it (not Alias guy or Tour Guide chick) fall in then swim back safely to the other side. What? This movie doesn't have enough killing. We're still looking at like fifteen people who are all still alive. This is some bullshit right here.

- I was looking up "what age can kids throw and catch a ball" because Wonderbaby can already throw and catch really well. Well, you know how google has a drop down auto-fill feature when you start to type something? Well, if you start with "what age can kids" the two most popular searches are "stay home alone" and "be left home alone." So there are millions of parents all over the world who are reliant on google to raise their kids rather than a little bit of god damn common sense. Fantastic.

- Also "can my kid" goes to "get herpes from me" and "can my k" goes to "kitten catch my cold." Honestly, I'm not sure which of these is more terrifying.

- Oh my god that was so sweet. First glimpse of the croc as it grabs some jackass who was standing too close to the water and flips him over its head back into deeper water, then turns around and takes him down with a whole lot of dude screaming. Also, very well done on the effects. The croc looks very natural and real, and not oversized (think the shark in Jaws compared to the one in Jaws 3). God that was sweet.

- Man, it really sucks for these guys that their boat crashed. Probably shouldn't have had a woman driver.

- The dude who wrote this also wrote the movie Wolf Creek, which was a pretty good horror movie loosely based on an actual Australian serial killer. It's not the greatest movie of all-time, but you could do a lot worse for a rental. Think Hostel but way less stupid.

- Speaking of good movies, we watched Mean Girls earlier this week, and seriously, that is an awesome movie. Hot chicks all over the place, well acted, and extremely well written with a sarcastic, biting wit that makes it hilarious. Seriously, that might be the best movie of the decade. According to filmsite.org, it was one of the fifty best movies of 2004 - what more do you need? Although in some ways it makes me very sad to see this version of Lohan and know what she would eventually become. Another picture? Ok, fine. Last one:

Great googly-moogly. And speaking of Mean Girls, the chick who plays Janis Ian is in True Blood and got all naked. She looks good.

- New plan - they baited a hook with something (I hope it was the dog) and are hoping the croc gets itself hooked so then they can swim across to the other side and actual land. I didn't catch this at first, but apparently the tide is rising and in a half hour the island they are on will be under water and they will all be dead. This all sounds super realistic.

- Well fuck me, it worked. I feel like Will Scarlet in Robin Hood: Price of Thieves. Well, it mostly worked. Everybody got to the other side except for Alias guy, who is still stranded on the quickly flooding island, and tour guide lady, who got kilt. That's a major curveball folks. She was all set up to be the female survivor, but she got chomped all to hell.

- So with every body safe except for Alias guy (and that damn dog, which wasn't bait), I don't know what we're supposed to watch. This has suddenly turned into Castaway with a Crocodile. Actually that doesn't sound half bad.

- Dude just fell down into some underground cave, just like those freaky ginger twins in the Great Outdoors. I don't think we're going to see a Bear here, but we do have a dead body. Hopefully the croc shows up and eats this dick so the movie can just end. This is getting SUPER boring. Think a less interesting castaway with zero crocs. He's seriously just walking around looking for that stupid dog - it ran away from him - and I swear that's been going on for half an hour. Nothing but him trudging through swamp saying, "Kevin (that's seriously the dog's name) Come here. Kevin, where are you?" Lame-a-saurus.

- Well, he found dead Tour Guide lady. She's been all chomped up. God I wish something would happen.

- This is apparently the croc's lair, and it would seem this particular croc has a peculiar, un-croc-like habit of storing dead bodies to feast on later. Thanks for making sure to have a completely unfactual made up quality to your movie beast. The special effects actually made me start to respect this movie, but in the end, the lame ass everything and complete lack of action and killing were super lame, and adding in a quality to an animal that it does not possess is really just the topping on the shit cake.

- Dude is carrying that chick's body around with him everywhere he goes. She's either alive, despite missing half her calf, or he's just way too attached. At this point I'm not ruling out necrophilia.

- Apparently she's alive. Great. Good job movie. Nice career, Alias guy.

- Ug. So the croc attacked him while he held a tree branch and it impaled it's own brain. I don't even have the strength left anymore to properly describe the climax. Just know it was shitty and involved symbolism with a praying mantis.

- Overall, the special effects and realistic croc portrayal were cut down in the end by the evil fake facts and horrible, horrible, horrible plot. This may have started well, but the depths it plummeted to and the lack of death (I think there were only like four kills) made me realize it sucks badly. I really should have rented Giant Octopus vs. Mega Shark instead. I had this on Tivo though, and figured I'd just watch it. Huge mistake. Someday, maybe somebody will be able to combine a good, realistic, interesting story with a giant animal and a whole bunch of killing. Today is not that day.

Off to Duluth tomorrow for a bachelor party and some of the worst golf imaginable. Check you later.