Monday, September 5, 2011

Apollo 18, Mystery Date, and a Podcast

I just have a few things I'm going to put out here very quickly since they all came out at once! First up, Liz and I went to see Apollo 18 and here are our thoughts on the movie!



Next up, Liz and I play another board game - Mystery Date Game!



And her final verdict:




And then I reappear on Podcast Sentai Power Rangers, which you can listen to HERE!

21 comments:

Dragon FangX said...

I swear, after watching the review of the movie, putting two and two together, this is an unofficial prequel to Cloverfield. Spider like aliens, the idea there might be bigger ones, government cover up, people exploding from venom/badies. Its the cloverfield monster!

The thing that crashed into the ocean before the monster attacks? That was the space module after so long finally crashing to earth some time after some pieces with the camera footage fell to earth. It fits!

Dave said...

It seems just bizarre to me in the game that you would lose your clothes to the Dud.

What happens to them? The cleanest possible answer is that the sight of the Dud scars you and you never wear that outfit again...

KHarn said...

Thanks for stopping me before I wasted my money. Another conspiracy movie, SHEESH!
You're right about the "USSR would have bragged" thing; I remember when we landed on the moon, American communists claimed that the USSR had landed FIVE times before us!
The "ghosts on the moon" plot would have been great. A team in the 1940s or 50s had built a moonrocket, but thier plan to return failed. Add some 16mm footage of their proud triumph and last moments.

Cole said...

For Appolo 18, I would guess that there's a second species on the moon they were infecting.

GrayMorality said...

I think that the game would be more interesting if there were action cards that you could use to affect the game. For example, "Date canceled to due interuption by civil rights match. Play on opponent to cancel their date." or "SHOPPPING SPREE: Take one card of your choice from the draw pile and shuffle the the deck afterwards" or "Spill drink on self, lose one article of clothing at random" or "'Accidentally' spill drink on oponent. Choose one item of clothing from opponent and put it in the discard pile"

Jyger85 said...

This movie just sounds really f'ing dumb to me.

Oh, and liked the SF Debris reference. Seriously, why have you two never done a review together? lol

Trevor said...

Don't know if you've seen this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhlmNkk5r0k

Anonymous said...

Its a game from the 1960's. You are taking it wayyyyyyyyy to serious.

Brainchild said...

Nerdlinger makes you lose all your clothes? Sounds like the conclusion of a GREAT date, if you ask me. ;)

Also, maybe the reason Bowling J. Edgar Hoover keeps showing up is not to bug your house, but to simply borrow one of your spare evening gowns. Oh what I am I saying, he'd bug the house anyway.

Also, Horror of Party Beach references FTW. I agree with you Linkara that the Del-Aires had some seriously catchy songs in that movie. If only the dancing weren't quite so horrific...*shudder*

EJ Dawe said...

I'm unlikely to be the first to mention this, but each Apollo Mission planted a flag at the landing site.
If you look at pictures from each mission, you will see flags for each one.
American jingoism of the late 60s early 70s aside,the men of the Apollo program were all military at one or another point in their careers and having the flag out the window was likely a small comfort. Farther from home that anyone had ever been, in, as you noted, the most alien environment possible, looking out and seeing something of home, so familiar - in a way the equipment to get them there was not - probably helped enormously.

The Apollo 11 and 12 flags were likely knocked over/destroyed by the liftoff of the LEM's ascent stage, something the astronauts noted as they took off. Missions 14-17 placed the flags further from the LEM and those four likely remain in place on the lunar surface.

Arcane Flame said...

I thought the interference/weird signals was coming from the DoD stuff they had put on the moon and the signal was to attract/antagonize the moon crabs to leave the crater. Which then resulted in the crabs attacking the sources of the signal the DoD Stuff and the LEM [which is probably right as on their website ( http://apollo18movie.net/cosmonauts/ ) they have something on their classified mission plan called 'Operation "Mousetrap"'.

Makes even less sense with all the secret documents (including bits from the Soviet Embassy urging the mission for the sake of 'the security of this planet') that NASA wouldn't brief these guys as to what they were actually suppose to be doing on the moon - since you know they were just checking out something that may be a major threat to the planet and all.

Arcane Flame said...

Wait I just realized something - the promo site is called 'Cerberus Station 9' ( http://apollo18movie.net/cosmonauts/ )... Does that mean that this was suppose to be a Mass Effect prequel movie and the bugs are a type of Rachni?

Ryan said...

The "dud" later went on to found a successful computer company.

Mad Hatter said...

lol, i ended up watching brads review first, he actually felt it was more suspenseful than you two did...you two gave more in depth detail about the plot though and from the sound of it its DEFINITELY something i wouldn't enjoy...but it sounds like an interesting concept, poorly executed

s said...

Great review, guys! I think your first five minutes covered all the reasons I refuse to see this movie - I'm a NASA engineer, so seeing people screw up space and the space program like this drives me up the wall.

Your discussion of how the remaining astronaut reacted to being told he couldn't come back to Earth - by panicking - made me think of a story told in a book I have by Alan Shepard and Deke Slayton, the Mercury astronauts. On the first Soyuz flight, cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov experienced a series of increasingly catastrophic failures in his power, electrical, and attitude control systems, culminating in his spacecraft spinning dangerously out of control. When told he was going to have to attempt a very dangerous unscheduled reentry with very low chances of survival, he was given the chance to speak with his wife in Mission Control. Despite being sick from the spacecraft's uncontrollable tumbling, he still managed to talk calmly to her to say goodbye, against all odds flew the spacecraft through a successful reentry, and unfortunately was killed when his capsule's parachutes malfunctioned during landing. THAT, folks, is how an astronaut or cosmonaut would behave in a situation like that. Not blithering panic.

Anyway, again, great review!

Zachrid said...

I expected something like they brought a nuke with them, without knowing it. Send a Apollo mission up there, rig the cameras so they transmit home via the luna lander and after you have some additional information about the spiders, blow them up.

JLH said...

In that image for the Apollo 18 blog, Liz looks really uncomfortable, while Lewis appears to be thinking of cheese.

Grendle1853 said...

Why were you so ticked off at the Nightmare on Elm Street movie? I thought it was one of the best Horror remakes that came out recently. Though that might be damning it with faint praise.

Lewis Lovhaug said...

"Why were you so ticked off at the Nightmare on Elm Street movie? I thought it was one of the best Horror remakes that came out recently. Though that might be damning it with faint praise."

Watch Angry Joe's review of it and that pretty much covers the bases.

BooRat said...

Ok, on Apollo 18 I haven't seen it or intend to anytime soon, might watch it if it's ever on tv, but as in the Sno's review I just had to say it sounds pretty boring. But, I did quote that joke ya'll did about how the film got back to Earth by finding and falling into a plothole that lead back to Earth. Also, Rock Cras I was surprised no Pirates referince!
Ya'll need to get a new AC that thing sounded rough. like the blades were out of balance!

On the old boardgame Mystery Date I reall all the pop culture refinces but had never seen the game in reallife before ut it does look like a girlly thing all around. Not my bag!
"They're filling all her holes!" Funnist thing I've heard all week! That was completely unexspect from ya'll and that's what made it awesome!

Again, I'm going to say/ask/demand ya'll find buy and play ICP's Quest for Shangre-La boardgame as it seems ya'll'd like it even if you don't like thier music or what they stand for or their fans the game is sweet. it's like an RPG videogame in a boardgame form. You got over 12 characters with different stats, abilities, weapons, weaknesses, and alinces.
I'm going to contenue to ask until ya'll demand I stop(even then I might not) or buy and play it. It'd be very interesting just to see ya'll's reactions to the gameplay!

Well, I'm done I hope for now! :D

SmoothYeti said...

In the last part of the film when the astronauts go to the crater, there are shots where bigger alien-spiders can be seen. Only a couple, but presumably the leader of the pack so to speak. This would be the more logical excuse for the pod being rocked.

Given other missions to space, it would be easy to assume that maybe other astronauts have explored the wreckage; of course it may have went back to the moon or could be floating in space. Although that raises the question of whether the aliens are still alive if they're not back on the moon...