Did you guys watch The River last night? It is the new attempt to be the new Lost on ABC, created and directed by the guy who made Paranormal Activity. (For previous attempts to be the new Lost, see The Event.) The premise is that a fictional combination of Jacques Cousteau and the Crocodile Hunter had a much-beloved and long-running educational nature/adventure program but has recently gone missing in the Amazon and is now pronounced dead. But then the signal from his emergency distress beacon (how ’80s) has been picked up. The wife convinces her son that their father is still alive and they have to go looking for him, and the only way they can get the money to do so is from a reality TV crew that will only help them if they both go looking. (Supposedly the crew is actually the adventurer’s old crew, but then why are they so pushy and exploitative and weird and rude and completely devoid of compassion? They’re clearly a reality TV crew.) And so now the hunt begins and oh whoops here is a blonde girl and a pair of hispanics and a black cameraman who seems to be doing his best Idris Elba impersonation and also a British mercenary with suspicious motives because what would a horror-adventure series that rips off Lost so hard be without a British mercenary with suspicious motives? LET’S GET READY FOR MAGIC!

Read More...

This is the movie equivalent of that classic Onion op-ed “Fuck Everything, We’re Doing Five Blades.” It’s that. But a movie. In this case, though, it’s not fuck “everything,” it’s just fuck plot, production value, good acting, and any desire to see it. Otherwise it’s BALLS OUT.

I am telling you this though: the United States Government suspended any and all supersoldier training and development programs about 10 years ago. Hollywood has successfully forced the military-industrial complex to recognize that it’s simply TOO RISKY. They always go rogue. Always. It’s going to take all your best men facing the toughest challenge of their careers to bring him in, and even that won’t be enough. Don’t you realize he just wants out? THIS IS NOT WHAT HE SIGNED UP FOR.