Vagrant Video Reviews - Knockout (2011)

Check it out everyone! Here's our review of the film Knockout starring Stone Cold Steve Austin!

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The Basement Vagrants Podcast - Episode 7 - "Four Angry Men"

Episode 7 is here! Woo hoo! D-Roc and Punga from The Ring Crew show are with Matt and Shweitzer this time to talk about Blockbuster shutting down, the merits of wrestling and boxing, FOX's Sunday Night Snorefest and lots of other stuff.


Click here to download the podcast.

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My Retro Gaming Room

Hi everyone, this is Matt from The Basement Vagrants. I wanted to make a short post today showing off a project that I started working on this week. It's not finished yet, and I'm hoping that it's only going to improve as weeks go by, but here is what I've got so far.

I present, my retro gaming room!

All the consoles you see here are hooked up and working. There are a few consoles I have that I haven't been able to hook up yet for various reasons (Sega Mastersystem, Intellivision, Genesis etc.) And yes, I was watching Spawn.

I'm working on getting more poster, older ones in particular to keep with the retro theme, but these will have to do for now. Posters will cover the walls eventually.

More pics to come when it looks even awesomer.

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The Basement Vagrants Podcast - Episode 6 - "Stop the World of Warcraft, I want to get off!"

It's time for episode 6 of The Basement Vagrants Podcast! This week we talk about George "The One Destined to Bring Bullshit to the Force" Lucas, everybodys favorite robotic police officer, The Expendables 2 and of course, World of Warcraft.

Download the podcast here

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Don't Be Afraid of the Dark Review

Don't Be Afraid of the Dark Review
By Matt Recker

Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark is quite possibly the most aptly named movie to come to theaters in recent memory. Not only was it very easy to not be afraid, but it was very very dark.

Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark (which will henceforth be known as D’BAD) is about a young girl named Sally who comes from L.A. to live with her father in the Adam’s Family’s house and soon find out there are tiny little monsters living inside the basement who want to kill her and eat her teeth. It stars Guy Pierce, Katie Holmes and Bailee Madison, and while none of the performances were bad, none of them really stood out either. Twelve-year-old Bailee Madison is pretty good as Sally, performing well above what is commonly expected from a child actor. The acting is competent, but does nothing to add to the quality of the picture.

Ok

D’BAD is a movie that takes absolutely no risks. The plot is fairly simple and straight forward, there is no twist ending or big reveal and all of the events play out exactly as you would expect them to. It’s safe to say that if you’ve seen more than a handful of horror movies in your lifetime, you’ve seen this movie before. Every scene feels like it was borrowed from some other below average horror flick, there is nothing unique or interesting at all on screen here and by the end it makes you feel tired and bored, at least it did to me.

As far as visuals go, if there is anything to see on screen worth noting the movie is so dark I could not see it. The creature designs look alright, and it’s really nice to see monsters return to the big screen in theaters dominated mainly by ghosts and aliens, and I thought they looked fairly unique but there are only a couple moments where you can get a decent look at them. For the most part, this is intentional to build suspense and fear but even in the scenes where you’re supposed to be able to see them it’s difficult due to the films extremely dark tone. The house itself looks good, which is a good thing since the entire movie takes place there, and the scenes in the creepy basement are for the most part… well, creepy. The movie never dares to do anything different visually, instead it settles into a cozy little corner of cinematic cliché where there is no fear of taking a chance and failing.

Do yourself a favor and watch this instead

There are also a lot of times when the characters in the movie behave like complete idiots, or seemingly important points are completely glossed over. In one scene, Sally is attacked by hundreds of the monsters in the library of her mansion during a party, and manages to actually kill one of the creatures just before her father and his guests burst in the room. Her dad rushes in to comfort her and then the scene ends. Sally doesn’t think to show the dead monster to her dad to finally prove that they’re real? Even if her dad did believe her at that point, wouldn’t it be an important plot point for him to actually see one of the creatures that has been terrorizing his daughter? I guess not, because despite deliberately showing her kill one of the things it is never shown or mentioned again. Another thing that bugged me is that the creatures are afraid of light (real original) but everyone in the movie, including the girl, insists on keeping the lights off at all hours of the day, and only doing anything at night. I understand that if they kept the place lit up like Vegas 24/7 then the monsters wouldn’t get any screen time, but do they have to practically invite them to ruin their lives. Even when the entire family finally realizes that the house is swarming with demons that want to eat their daughter and kill her stepmom, they decide to stay in the house just one more night, then leave in the morning. Yeah, that makes sense. Also, I’m not going to spoil the ending, but it makes absolutely no sense either. Characters are attacked for no reason, the monsters purpose is explained but their actions make no sense in regard to their overall goal, plot points are glossed over or forgotten about completely, it’s really just a mess. The whole film suffers from the classic horror movie syndrome where the characters act completely illogically so that the evil force can prevail, despite its incompetence.

Bottom line, D’BAD isn’t completely offensive to the senses. It isn’t the worst thing I’ve seen in theaters, not even close, but it’s just not that interesting, scary or original in any way. I’m hard pressed to find any redeeming value in it other than the fact that it wasn’t horribly painful to see. It’s a movie that has no reason to exist, and is destined to lie forgotten in the $5 bin at Wal-Mart in a years time.

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The Basement Vagrants Podcast - Episode 5 - "It's The Wallace Grisby Show!"

This time Schweitzer and I are alone and talking about James Bond. We even manage to stay on topic this time, mostly.

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Thunderball Review

The James Bond series started off very strong with a fantastic trilogy of films, but the silver had to start to tarnish eventually, and it all started with Thunderball. I wouldn't say that Thunderball is a bad entry, but it's the distinct point in the series where cracks would start to show in the franchises armor, and is a major step down in quality after the first 3 films.

Fuck Aquaman!

In Thunderball, 007 must try to recover two nuclear bombs stolen by Emilio Largo, head of extortion and "Number 2" of the criminal organization SPECTRE. Largo plans to use the bombs to hold the world hostage for £100 million by threatening to detonate them in either the United States or England. Thunderball is a largely water themed movie, with many scenes taking place on a beach, underwater, or on Largo's luxury yacht, the Disco Volente.

One main problem with Thunderball is that there is very little action, and what action there is isn't very exciting. There is one main action sequence near the end, one that's become rather infamous among Bond fans for being one of the slowest, most boring in the history of the series. Near the end of the film, a battalion of US Coast Guards, led by Bond's pal Felix leiter, attempt to storm Largo's boat and meet up with all of Largo's soldiers and fight for what feels like 20 minutes underwater. A battle at the bottom of the sea is pretty interesting idea for an action scene, and on paper it seems very exciting, but unfortunately it doesn't translate well to the screen. The only weapon used are harpoons, which are a nice change of pace from bullets, but there's only so many times you can see a man get stuck in the chest in slow motion before it becomes tedious. The plot is also not exciting enough to keep the audience engaged and interested in the why the action is happening, or providing any consequences to it's conclusion.

Largo is visually an interesting villain. He's an older, charismatic man with an eye patch and a beautiful island mansion, complete with killer shark pool. Along with Blofeld (Number 1) he probably has one of the most iconic looks in the franchise. He reminds me a lot of Fransisco Scaramanga from The Man With the Golden Gun, one of my all-time favorite villains. His plan to extort the world with nuclear warheads seems pretty standard and ordinary, for Bond anyway, and it never seems to bring any tension into the movie. He makes his demands early on and we see M and other heads of British Intelligence and the government worry a little about paying the ransom, and then the threat is forgotten about for most of the movie. It never feels like any of the events and situations James is in relate much to the plot, or are working to resolve the conflict at all. Despite his appearance, Largo is the first forgettable villain of the James Bond series.

Our Bond girl this time is Domino, played by Claudine Auger, Largo's mistress. Like her employer, Domino is a forgettable companion to Bond. She is involved with the situation solely because of her relationship with Largo and although she plays a pretty big role in Largo's defeat at the end, she does not contribute much to the success of Bond's mission. Domino is much like Largo in their contributions to the film, they are involved in the plot but never seem like they are having much effect on the movie. They are both largely forgettable and do not in any way live up to their predecessors.

I do not hate Thunderball, but I don't particularly like it. At 130 minutes it is one of the longest Bond films, and due to the lack of action or excitement, you feel every minute of it. There are some good scenes, like when Bond first meets Largo in the casino, and the opening scene featuring Bond using a jetpack (admittedly quite silly, but in a fun way). Also the marti-gras sequence is entertaining visually. Thunderball was the most financially successful movie in the James Bond franchise, but for my money it was the first disappointment, but thankfully it's one small bit or tarnish on an otherwise beautiful piece of silver.

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