Over the last decade the NBA's Milwaukee Bucks have made the the playoffs a total of 3 times, all 1st round exits. During that time their best season was in 2009-10 where they won 46 games. In those 10 years they've gone through 7 head coaches, won only 41.5% and lost 470 games. Their lowest point was a 15-67 record in 2013-14, but that did get them the 2nd pick in the 2014 NBA Draft. The Bucks have not been very relevant in the league since they last went to the Eastern Conference Finals in 2001. A time when the Eastern Conference was very weak.
Public funding for new sports arenas are a bad idea. Unless of course the venue in question is in a state that's awash in money. That was a joke. Most states are all claiming poverty as public services are being cut. As someone who does not are about the Bucks, let them leave. The last NBA title the team won was back in 1971 and they have not been to the NBA Finals since 1974. That's FOUR DECADES of futility.Well to be fair, it's four decades of mediocrity. The Bucks won the NBA title in only their 3rd year of existence! That was largely due in part to this guy...
The Bucks took Kareem Abdul-Jabbar with the 1st pick of the 1969 NB Draft and would go to expansion franchise to relevance after one season. Kareem was traded to the Lakers after the 1975 season and enjoyed a nice run in the 80's, making it to 3 Eastern Conference Finals in 4 years. The hump they couldn't get over was in the form of either the Boston Celtics or Philadelphia 76ers. Basically, the glory years of the Bucks have been gone a long time. Though the future seems bright, but they're probably not going to win a championship any time soon. The Bucks are threatening to leave,so let them. It's not a good long term deal. If the new owners get a new arena, they'll probably sell after a few years and walk away with a few billion dollars and then they'll be a new ownership group to deal with.
If the Bucks leave, I'm willing to bet dollars to donuts that Milwaukee will keep going without too much trouble. When the Whalers left Hartford in 1997, did Hartford flame out? Did Montreal stop functioning when the Expos left? Seattle is doing just fine since the Sonics left in 2008. When the NHL left Atlanta twice(!), the city powered on. Heck, the Braves are leaving metro Atlanta in 2017 and I doubt anyone in the city will care too much. Speaking of Atlanta, the Hawks are coming off a season where they went they went to the Eastern Conference Finals for the 1st time in the teams's history (they moved from St. Louis to Atlanta in 1968) and the ownership group are squawking about getting a new arena. Let's see what happens.
Now that the latest installment of the franchise has been released it's time to rank them. Over the course of 30 plus years there have 5 films and a TV show. Apparently the tv show dealt with Sarah and John Connor being on the run after the events of T2. I never watched the show so I could care less about and it won't factor in here. There are a lot of different opinions out there about the franchise and some of them are absolutely correct. Being that I'm in my mid-40s, I've seen every film in the theater. Here are my rankings (the percentages are the Rotten Tomatoes ratings)...
Another installment no one asked for was released in 2009 (sensing a trend yet?). The film was helmed by underwhelming director, McG. The budget was estimated at $200,000,000 with a domestic gross of $125,000,000. Terminator Salvation is probably better known for Bale's infamous on set tirade than anything else. The film is set in 2018, 14 years after Judgement Day. Bale is John Connor, prophetic resistance commander in the war against Skynet. Sam Worthington is Marcus, a criminal executed prior Judgement Day who turns out to be a part human/part terminator early infiltration model. Both Skynet and Connor are obsessed with finding a teenage Kyle Reese. Connor needs Reese to send him back to 1984 in 2029 so Reese can rescue his mother. Skynet wants Reese dead so Connor can't send him back to 1984 in order to impregnate his mother and thus giving birth to John Connor. WTF??? So Skynet is on to Kyle Reese being John's dad, how you ask? Because that's how the writers wanted it apparently. This actually could've been a mediocre story of the war on Skynet. But we didn't get that. After seeing this, I felt that it didn't matter who Connor's father actually was. In order to exist he just needed Sarah to get pregnant in 1984. There were no records of the father according to the original film. There's good action sequences but most the time they don't make any sense.
Released in 2003 and directed by Jonathan Mostow, the film had an estimated budget of $200,00,00 and took in over $150,000,000 domestically. The film takes place in July 2004, Judgement day was averted thanks to the gang from the previous film. John Connor (Nick Stahl) is a drug addict drifter who's having some struggles with being the savior of the human race. He meets up with a veterinarian type woman Kate Brewster (Claire Danes) who doesn't like the idea that he's stealing animal meds. In the future Skynet has decided to kill off the leaders of resistance so John Connor won't have any of his top lieutenants. Skynet sends back a new terminator, a TX, who just happens to be female...
Impeccable fashion sense. Given.
Eventually Ah-nuld shows up (he's a T-850) and he saves Kate and John from the TX. The T-850 and the TX do battle while Skynet is activated. This is bad. The gang escapes to Crystal Peak, a government fallout shelter, in hopes of stopping Skynet. The T-850 defeats the TX but Skynet succeeds in taking over and launches the nuclear arsenal. The film ends with John taking the mantle as the eventual leader of the resistance. Oh by the way, it turns out John Connor was killed on 4 July 2032 and his wife, Kate Brewster, reprograms the T-850 and sends it back in time.
This wasn't a bad film but in the first two installments, the future timeline was 2029. Why the change? Since Skynet is a non-organic life form, why does the terminator need to be a woman? I guess it's a better infiltration unit because she's not quite as imposing and she's got weapons built into her. There are a lot of problems with the story in this film, like what happened between the 2029 timeline and 2032? What prompted Skynet to change it's go-to theory of killing John Connor and go after his subordinates and wife? There's also some weird sh*t that the TX does that doesn't make sense. From tasting blood and computing DNA matches to a deeply weird terminator orgasm face...
It's a bit disturbing.
For a film no one asked for, this wasn't too bad but it hasn't really stood the test of time and much like Terminator Salvation, it gets skipped over by the most recent installment.
James Cameron's 1991 sequel pretty much solidified himself as a must see director. The film had a then unheard of budget of $102,000,000 and took in a staggering domestic gross of nearly $205,000,000. The special effects of the film were groundbreaking and pretty much melted my brain as a 20 y/o kid. The story takes place in 1995, John Connor is 10 years old and is living in foster care since Sarah is in a secure mental facility. Skynet sends back a T-1000 liquid metal terminator to do away with John. John from the future sends back the Ah-nuld terminator to protect his 10 year old self.
In addition to the non-stop action (some of it a bit over the top), we get the origin story of Cyberdyne Systems and Skynet. It turns out that Cyberdyne used portions of the T-800 from the first film to make advances in robotics but neglected to let the public know. They're more or less responsible for Sarah being thrown into a mental hospital and becoming a bad-ass conspiracy theorist nut.
Emphasis on the bad-ass portion
Sarah, John and the T-800 head to Cyberdyne to destroy the 1984 T-800 parts and lay waste to the building. This leads to the climatic terminator showdown where the T-1000 is defeated and thrown into a vat of molten steel.
As awesome as this film was in 1991, it's kept from the top spot because of of the cheesy attachment the annoying 10 y/o John Connor forms with the T-800. Edward Furlong plays the young John Connor and the kid was mildly annoying in 1991 and when I watch the film now, he's super annoying. I guess that's how a 10 y/o kid would act in those circumstances but the performance didn't age well. Then there was the scene where the T-800 computes that he too must be destroyed lest he falls into the hands of Cyberdyne and we get this "emotional" scene...
In 1991 I probably thought this was a cool ending but I'm skipping the last few minutes of the film if I'm watching it today. I like to believe some studio head made Cameron out this into the film because the test audience wanted a more "human" ending. Who knows.
Released in 1984, this was only Cameron's 2nd directorial feature. The budget was $6,500,000 (massive considering Cameron's debut film, Piranha 2: The Spawning had a budget around $150,000) and it raked in over $38,000,000 domestically. I remember a friend telling me about this film, he described it as Ah-nuld being an indestructible robot from the future and who goes around shooting up Los Angeles. SOLD! Excellent performances all around. The action was very fast paced and in your face. Some of the special effects don't stand the test of time too well, but they are a lot of great films with the same problem.
The plot is actually pretty straight forward, a cyborg is sent back in time to kill the mother of the human resistance so that machines can dominate the earth in the future. The leader of the resistance sends a naked guy back to save his mother so that he can be born. The thing here is, was Reese ordered to mate with Sarah Connor? He tells Sarah that he came through time for her and that he's been in love with her ever since John showed him a picture of her. That's a lot of pressure to put on a guy. Linda Hamilton's performance is really good considering what she becomes in the next installment. She starts of the film as a scared girl who's life is a mess (as most 20 something would be regardless of gender) and by the end she's throwing out witty catchphrases that were normally set aside for male action leads...
To be fair, it was close between Terminator and T2 for the top slot. It came down to the fact that I'd rather watch the first film more than any other. Call it sentimentality or whatever. The plot is simple. In T2, it gets a bit more convoluted. Plus, T2 clocks in at 137 minutes versus Terminator's 107 minutes. I'm going to be more prone to skip through parts of T2 where I wouldn't do that with Terminator. Besides, it's Cameron's films that are far and away the best of the franchise. The list is chalk but that's just how I feel man. It's really hard for a the 2nd installment of any franchise to beat the original but it has happened. This isn't one of those cases. Thank you for your time.
Between 1984 and 2009 there have been four Terminator films and a TV show but I'm not sure why we needed a 5th film. For the life of me I just don't remember sitting around wondering, "man I wish they'd make another Terminator film." Despite no one clamoring for another Terminator installment or a reboot, we got one anyway.
This film is an amalgamation of the franchise. There's a lot taken from the 1st film, some taken from the 2nd film with the 3rd and 4th films being kind of ignored. But not really? Anyway, the film opens in 2029 and a John Connor led offensive on the Skynet base in Colorado. Connor and his team arrive too late as Skynet has already sent the T-800 back to 1984 in order to kill Sarah Connor.
Connor knows that he has to send someone back to save his mother, there is no shortage of volunteers but he chooses Kyle Reese, mostly because he's his dad (but Kyle doesn't know that part). As Kyle is in the magnetic field he sees that John is attacked and he has a strange memory from an alternate timeline. Then, BOOM! 1984. Director Alan Taylor takes on a nostalgic walk down memory lane from the 1st film as the T-800 and Kyle appear in downtown LA. As the T-800 asks some nice gentleman to borrow their clothes, another T-800 (though a bit longer in the tooth) is there to do battle. The still naked T-800 is disabled when hit with a few rounds from a rail gun.
Then it's Reese's turn to arrive and as he's getting his pants, the cop that meets him is the T-1000
Yep, ripped directly from Terminator 2. Reese is saved by the old T-800 and Sarah Connor!
Ta Da!
The trio escape and eventually the T-1000 picks up their trail into an abandon industrial property (what a surprise!), where the T-1000 is dispatched via acid booby trap. Then there's a series of big reveals...
It turns out that Skynet sent a terminator to kill Sarah as a child in 1973. The event took place at her folks Big Bear cabin (Terminator reference) and she's saved by a T-800 that she's currently working with.
They've built a replica of the time machine that had originally sent the T-800 back in time with parts scrounged between 1973-1984. All that's needed to activate it is the chip from the naked T-800.
Sarah is going to go to 1997 to stop Skynet becoming self aware (this is a T2 reference).
Reese decides to reveal his big news, John was attacked as he was in the time machine and he's got a memory about an alternate timeline. He wants to go to 2017 and stop Skynet based on his vision. He feels that the attack on John he witnessed messed with the timeline. The Guardian (this is Ah-nuld's character is listed as but Sarah refers to him as "Pops") compute that this could be possible. So 2017 it is. Kyle and Sarah go through and Pops, stays behind, he lost some flesh during thebattle with the T-1000 and metal can't go through the magnetic field.
As Sarah and Kyle arrive in 2017, Pops is late and they're picked up by the San Francisco police. Since there is no record of these two, the cops jump to the conclusion that they're terrorist. Despite the fact that they're English speaking Caucasians. Anyway. Kyle and Sarah are escape with help of John Connor!
Wait, not these guys.
This guy.
However, when Pops finally shows up, he reveals that John is a terminator. John then explains what happened while Kyle was going through the field and that he has become a T-3000nanomachine. The trio manage to escape and go to their hideout. At the hideout they come up with a plan to blow up Genisys. Genisys is this timeline's precursor to Skynet in the form of a universal app (developed in this timeline a time travelling terminator John Connor that will eventually become Skynet) that promises to link the world together (the story thread was brought to us by Kyle's alternate timeline vision). After a helicopter chase scene, everyone gets to Genisys and the final showdown is held in the chamber of the 2017 version of the 2029 Skynet time machine. The plan is the blow up the building before Genesys comes on line, In order to save time, the good guys win!
There was much rejoicing.
Where to begin? First of all there's just too much time travel. Some of it is explained and some of it us just thrown in there. Enough already. The film stuck pretty closely to the original 1984 film but picked and chose what they wanted from the other films. Kyle narrates a little back story of himself that doesn't mesh with his origin from Terminator Salvation. There was no need to have a T-1000 appearance other than to set-up the trip to 2017. There were too many terminators going back and forth through time. Who keeps sending them? Speaking of 2017, are you kidding me with the alternate timeline vision? There were cameos by Danny Dyson, the son of Miles Bennett Dyson from T2. He's a high ranking Genisys employee who's putting together the time machine. He's only in there to keep the Dyson name alive in the Terminator universe. We also get treated to a 2017 teenage Kyle Reese in the same time as 2029 Kyle. In an era where films suffer from a lack of story, Terminator Genisys suffers from too much story. All of it non-cohesive.
I also had an issue with the fact that Reese (as well as the other resistance soldiers) were are jacked up. Granted, in the military, one needs to stay in shape but this is a post nuclear holocaust world. Where are these guys getting their protein powder? Is there a GNC franchise that survived. Non-radiated food has got to be scarce but Reese looks like he's on his way to a Magic Mike XXL casting call.
The acting was good. Emilia Clarke was a very convincing Sarah Connor and even looked a bit like Linda Hamilton circa 1984.
See? The resemblance is kind of there.
Jai Courtney was good as Kyle Reese, he wasn't as good as Michael Biehn but he was adequate. It's also fair to note that Courtney never got that emotional scene where Reese reveals his love to Sarah as Biehn did in 1984. Ah-nuld was about what I expected. His performance was ok at best. Though you got the same jokes from T2 about him becoming more human and wisecracking all the time. He's Sarah's mother hen and his references to the coupling of Sarah and Kyle are underwhelming. That's not Ah-nuld's fault, that's the fault of the writers. The action sequences were good but some scenes were just over the top. Specifically, the bus scene on the Golden Gate Bridge and the helicopter chase scene. Again, too unrealistic.
I guess I liked this film a bit more than I liked Jurassic World but I really didn't like Jurassic World at all. There's a reason why Rotten Tomatoes gave it a 26% and why it's tanked at the box office so far. Unless you're a diehard Terminator fan, don't bother seeing this film at the theater. The overall experience is not that good. We didn't need another Terminator installment. No one asked for it. A straight up remake that stayed true to Cameron's original would have been fine but we got this instead.
I took a lot of notes while researching the franchise (it was 1 page) ad I'll write another post that deals with a ranking of the films and some of the problems with the individual films. Thank you for your time.
The NHL is expanding and the fee to join in is $500 million. That's a cool $16.667 million in cash for the 30 owners for each new franchise. Now, I've talked about this topic in the past and my opinion hasn't changed. One of the major roadblocks in Bettman's grand scheme is the situation between the City of Glendale and the Arizona Coyotes.
Las Vegas really wants an NHL franchise. The city is on the fast track for an expansion franchise. However, there is a rumor circulating that the Coyotes are relocating to Vegas. Since Vegas is a front runner for an expansion franchise (and a $500 million expansion fee), any current franchise relocating to Vegas is a problem (500 million problems). Of course NHL Commissioner Bettman denies any rumor and it very well may be just a rumor. The problem I have is that Bettman previously denied expansion rumors in 2014. That means Bettman has lied before but he may not be lying now because I have no idea.
What does all this mean? Who knows. My money is on the Coyotes relocating. Glendale terminated the lease at the Gila River Arena and the NHL is determined to keep them in Arizona. Going back to downtown Phoenix is a possibility but the arena where they'd play (came arena as the Suns) is not hockey ready. The NHL would like to have a franchise in Las Vegas, they'd like it a lot more if the city ponies up the $500 million expansion fee. It doesn't want Vegas getting a team for free, It will be interesting to see how this plays out.
Another film I wouldn't normally see but my fiance and I had a social function to attend in the same area as the AMC 21 on E. Illinois and the 6:45 show fit nicely into our plan. This film received a 95% on Rotten Tomatoes so it was worth a look. To be fair, I had low expectations and I was quite surprised by how funny it was. Paul Feig wrote and directed this pseudo-spoof on spy tropes. The film stars Melissa McCarthy as Susan Cooper, a low level CIA agent who is the "eyes & ears" of Jude Law's Bradley Fine. Fine gets all the glory (and perks) in the field while Cooper has to fend off vermin in the office as she gets Fine through is predicaments.
Without spoiling too much, a series of unfortunate events leads Cooper to be put in the field in order to stop a nuclear arms sale. Cooper successfully bumbles her way through leads despite having to put up with Ford's (Jason Statham) hijinx that nearly gets him killed. Come to find Cooper is actually a better field agent than Ford. Suffice to say Cooper saves the day and becomes a full fledged field agent.
There's a lot of funny stuff going on, nothing that hasn't been done before but who cares it works. Cooper gets saddled with silly cover IDs and she only starts getting success when she ditches her awful covers complete with bag wigs, ridiculous clothes and gadgets (spy stuff disguised as hemorrhoid cream and what not). Funny. McCarthy did well with the material delivered well. There were some scenes that weren't that good but that had nothing to do with her performance. McCarthy carries the film and she does a good job under Feig's direction. The only thing that didn't work for me was Rose Byrne's performance as the villain trying to sell the nuclear bomb. Miranda Hart was great as Cooper's CIA pal Nancy who helps Cooper out. Peter Serafinowiz was very funny as Aldo, Cooper's sexed up Italian contact who is constantly coming on to her.
Feig directed the runaway hit Bridesmaids and Spy will pass the $100 million domestic gross mark within a few weeks at the most. He seems to have a recipe for success and that should give hope for his upcoming Ghostbusters 3 feature.
Seeing this film kind of fell in my lap. I had no intention of seeing it but a few guys from work were going to see it and I tagged along. No regrets as I knew what I was getting into. The sequel is pretty my much the same film as the original. It's not bad but it's not as good as the original and the original wasn't that good to begin with. There are some laugh out loud moments that are mostly dick/fart jokes with a few weed jokes tossed in. It was a collection of "funny" scenes that MacFarland strung together into a feature film. There's a semblance of plot structure but it's only there to advance the jokes, which are not new (though still funny).
Amanda Seyfried is the new female interest as Samantha, the lawyer helping to overturn the ruling that Ted is property. Luckily for Ted and John she likes her some weed as well. Jessica Barth returns as Ted's wife, Tami Lynn. Since Ted is a stuffed animal he is unable to father children and after a botched attempt to steal Tom Brady's sperm, Ted asks John for help. So Ted and John go to the sperm bank and quite predictable hijinx ensues...
The entire "let's have a kid" plot line revolves around this joke.
Of course, the video makes a reference that MacFarland steals from his own creations. Big surprise. Ted runs nearly two hours and it shows. There's a plot line that has the gang travel to NYC from Boston to meet with a prominent civil rights attorney who might take on Ted's appeal. That's about 15 minutes of the film that is not at all necessary and the jokes that it sets up weren't good enough to warrant the extra running time. The entire film is like this. MacFalrand also presses about getting Sam and John to hook up, which of course they do. I found that a bit creepy since John is pushing 40 in the movie (Wahlberg was born in 1971) and making advances on his 26 year old attorney. None if it seemed right.
MacFarland isn't breaking any new ground and it might be worth seeing a matinee but don't pay the extra money for a premiere viewing.
June 18th in Johnson City, TN. After seeing the trailer, I didn't feel well about this film. It looked a lot like the original film with bits of the sequels thrown in. So nothing very original. Plus, I have a hard time taking Chris Pratt seriously. He was great in Guardians of the Galaxy but as a serious action star? I'm not seeing it. Despite my doubts, fate threw me a softball by placing a cineplex near my hotel in Johnson City.
I'll be brief on this, the film stunk, It was very much indeed a shot by shot remake of the original. Complete with young kids (2 boys in this film whereas the original had a brother/sister combo) sent to the park by their soon to be divorced parents (though in this film we meet the parents). So the story was just rehashed. The SFX were about as good as the original which means there was nothing new (at least it didn't get worse like WETA between Return of the King and The Hobbit). The film basically goes on as if the the two sequels never existed. Anyway, Jurassic World is built over the remains of the original park. With the advances in technology InGen was able to clone more dinosaurs and make a prehistoric version of a Sea World type theme park (complete with a water attraction!)...
Well it doesn't take long for things to go bad. The new attraction that is to be unveiled, the aptly named, Indominus Rex outsmarts his countermeasures, gets loose and wreaks havoc. The park sends a group to recapture Indominus but he dispatched them much like the predator did in Predator 2. Part of the havoc occurs when Indominus breaks into the aviary and sets the pteranodons free which gave us scenes like this...
Just about all of the dinosaur scenes were predictable. I actually groaned during a few scenes. The film is killing at the box office but that doesn't make it good. I get that this movie wasn't made for my demographic but they could've tried to make something original. IMHO, this film was a straight up money grab. It's all stuff we've scene before. The film has some unanswered questions that raised my eyebrows and firmly entrenches that this was a money grab. There's even a scene where it's mentioned that the public just wants "more teeth" in it's attractions and the the lure of living dinosaurs has worn off. I couldn't wait to get out of the theater when this film ended. Kids will like this film because it's got some cool stuff in it but as a 45 year old man, I've seen it all before.
The very concept that the park actually opened over 20 years after the original disasters is unrealistic. The lawsuits would've made get insurance premiums for the park nearly impossible. In the original, they had a fail safe plan, Lysine contingency. But no such plan in place here. "Oh sh*t! The dinosaurs are loose in the park and there's no way to stop them!" The human villains in the film just turns out to be the standard evil corporate conglomerate. BORING! We can probably expect another film since the corporate villains absconded with the juiced up embryos. Couldn't see that coming. I'll take a pass on any further installments.
