Saturday, January 28, 2012

Ahem Pinko



At least this remake stars the original cast.

CDC: Pandorum, Daybreakers, and Starship Troopers the Book

Daniel Craig - Vampire Law Enforcer in Starship Troopers power armor.
Hank Azaria - Vampire Bounty Hunter who has changed his views.
Javier Bardem - Vampire Bounty Hunter who has changed his views.
Scott Bakula - Vampire Law Enforcer in Starship Troopers power armor.
Marc Blucas - Vampire Law Enforcer in Starship Troopers power armor.

I wake up from suspended animation to a paradise world of free food, and sunshine. The air is clean and the earth looks healthy and wonderful. There are no people, but everything is well maintained. I wander around, eating and drinking all the fresh fruit and clean water a guy could want.

Vampires show up the first night, give me an awesome vacation of everything you could want, and then tell me about the sacrifice I need to make. The only humans left alive are in stasis from the old days. As these people wake up over the centuries, they are given an epic holiday, and then rendered down for their blood to keep the whole society alive. The society has advanced technologies, and can take one pint of human blood and replicate it into thousands of gallons, but they need periodic infusions of fresh blood. They estimate that there are less than three thousand humans left alive, and the vampire society needs that blood to survive until they can derive some synthetic proteins or blood, which could take another thousand years. I got the impression that the vampire scientists weren't working too hard on the problem. "There are millions of vampire scientists, artists, soldiers, politicians, citizens, etc, and they all need your sacrifice." I ask for another week of vacation.

The vampire authorities grant me request but assign me two minders to prevent me from killing myself, or running away. Javier Bardem and Hank Azaria (Hank Azaria trying to play a vampire badass surprisingly worked, and could make his career.) are my bounty hunter/minders and we go off and have a few great weeks together seeing the world's sights through my eyes, and at night. Eventually, in typical Hollywood fashion, I win them over, and they refuse to turn me in.

Javier and Hank use their katanas (OF COURSE) to slice up all the vampire guards, start Hulking-out vampire-style, getting huge spiky hands and long spiky ears, and then they put on their BadAssSuits and really fuck shit up. These suits protect them from daylight, and magnify their strength a little. The two former bounty hunters rip holes in walls, and let the sun shine in on all the vampire technicians and guards and scientists. These vampires don't sparkle, but explode, usually after a witty one-liner. Hank breaks outside and starts hitting things with cars. So the Vampire Department of Blood Retention's guards call in the big guns.

Daniel Craig suits up in power armor, pretty much straight out of Starship Troopers. Hank Azaria hits Daniel Craig's suit with a semi, and breaks the knee joints or something. The suit automatically sends for reinforcements while Daniel Craig lays about with the automatic grenade launchers, flamethrowers, and chainguns attached to his suit. His jump jets are offline, and his legs are embedded in the ground to his hips by all the cars and trucks that Hank Azaria is throwing at him.

Scot Bakula (wearing his Star Trek: Enterprise costume) and Marc Blucas (also wearing a Star Trek: Enterprise onesie) begin to suit up in larger suits of power armor, hitting toggles and switches and climbing down into the ten foot tall armor suits, while discussing the situation with the two former Bounty Hunters fighting against The Man. At this point, I woke up saying, "sweet."

Thursday, January 26, 2012

CDC: Harry Morgan and some Nubian Goats

In every relationship, there comes a time when your brain reaches a total saturation point, filled to the core with information that you hopefully use for good. My saturated mind has decided to use the disorganized sea of data to produce some really odd dreams filled with things my girlfriend will hopefully find funny.

The dream starts as so many do, suddenly I pop into the action from another dream, which had involved a cab ride and molotov cocktails and street riots, and I find myself looking at a map of Iowa.

"It doesn't appear to be on this atlas, we need a specific map of Iowa, Nick!" I put down the map, and I am in the back of a light blue van filled with camping gear and our bicycles. Nick and Brandon are up front arguing over the route to the starting point of RAGBRAI, and Nick shouts back, "I know it isn't on that map, but see if you can find the larger city that it is a suburb of, it is a northern suburb!"

"I'll just use my phone."

"You'll never get a signal in time!" Nick and Brandon both shout back. I fiddle with my phone, and the thing tells me to take an immediate right turn. "Nick, take the next exit to Booming! That's it!"

"Ok, goddamit! I AM SO ANGRY!" Nick is not an angry person, but apparently Iowa has aggravated him to the point of fury. Brandon gets in on the long wordless scream of rage, and we crest the ridge to see a sprawling city of skyscrapers and the Missouri River. The exit takes us along the ridge, and all we can see in the valley are giant buildings that look like they were made with LEGOs from our vantage point. "I AM GOING TO SMASH ALL OF THAT IF WE CAN'T FIND THE STARTING POINT SOON! RAAAAR!" At this point, my map feature on my phone quits, so I just direct Nick and Brandon to take whichever roads seems right to me. Eventually, we stop at a roadside rest area on the ridge, and I go find a map. When I come out of the rest area, Nick and Brandon have walked down into the valley and are smashing every skyscraper flat like Godzilla and Mecha-Godzilla. The valley which had looked deep and broad was actually a trick of the eye, and the buildings were made of LEGOs. It was all a hoax, or an elaborate movie set. The haze of smog was from a small misting machine, the Missouri river a small creek. I walk the twenty feet to the nearest building, rip it out of its base, and throw it at Nick's head. The building explodes in a shower of sharp plastic, and this shakes Nick out of his rampage. After we both threw some buildings at Brandon, he snapped out of his rage as well.

The two of them got back in the van, and we drove on to the sleepy little suburb where RAGBRAI was allegedly starting. When we get there, the town is a ghost town. No one on the sidewalk, no one driving, no one in the windows of the old farmhouses. We pull over at an intersection, and notice that two of the houses on diagonally opposite corners look suspiciously similar and Nick says, "I am going to smash that house, this is another movie set. You suck at directions, Charles."

"I'll just unload the stuff, this is where it is supposed to be." I walk around the house on the opposite corner from the one Nick wants to smahs, and I see goats in the windows. Nubian goats. "Those are Nubian goats. Hey guys, check out this house! It is full of Nubian goats!" The house is one of those old farmhouses that you see in New England or Iowa or wherever that are about 50 feet wide with a porch and some decorative woodwork, and then they stretch back over the property for about half a mile of addons, additions, extra rooms, and hallways all of different width and building materials. Goats are looking out of every window of this house.

One of the windows opens, and out come the goats. They flood out of the window in a cascade of bleating hoof, fur, and horn. When they stand up, the goats give this little shake and look at us like, "We do this every day." The goats all start wandering off. A last goat gives a warning bleat and we look up to see this large goat on the roof of the porch looking down at us. We have a second to ponder life's many mysteries before this goat leaps off the roof like a gazelle, and lands on Nick's head like a rhinoceros.

Nick and Brandon dust themselves off, and say that they are gonna bike a "quick fifty to get their heads in order." So I pull out my bike to check it over on the lawn of this house. I am checking the tires and gears and whatnot when I hear a throat cleared behind me. I turn around to see Harry Morgan standing there, looking at me strangely.

"Good morning, son. What are you doing on my lawn?"

"Uh, I'm working on my bike. We're here for RAGBRAI, but we seem to be early."

"Oh, right, RAGBRAI. They moved it to the next town up the river."

"Well, I will get our stuff together and we'll get off your lawn, sorry, sir."

"Why do you keep referring to yourself as we?"

"Oh, Nick and Brandon took off on an easy fifty, they'll be back in an hour or so."

"Okay, well, you have a good time on the ride."

"Uh, sir, Mr, Morgan? You probably get this a lot, but do you mind if I?"

"Sure, sure."

At this point, we both stood upright and I saluted him, he returned the salute, and said, "Dismissed!"

We both turned away to our respective duties, but then Harry Morgan asked, "say you haven't seen any goats around here, have you?"

"Yes! A whole mess of Nubian goats fell out of this house just a few minutes ago."

"Nubians, you say? Those are not the goats I'm looking for."

"Oh, sorry, Mr. Morgan."

"I suppose I'll find them someday. Have a fun ride!"