Stacy's Blog Has Got It Going On

"I must break you." -Ivan Drago Ivan Drago (Dolph Lundgren), a Soviet boxer, comes to the United States and faces Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers) in an exhibition match, with Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone) working as Creed's trainer.  The match goes horribly wrong and Creed is beaten to death by Drago.  Motivated by revenge, Rocky travels to Moscow to face off against Drago himself in the toughest match of his life. What Works: Ivan Drago is another fantastic villain to go up against Rocky.  He is the polar opposite of Clubber Land (Mr. T) from the previous film.  Clubber was loud, obnoxious, and in your face.  Drago is emotionless throughout the majority of the film, has very little dialogue, and just comes off as cold and brutal.  He's very different from anything Rocky has faced before.  He is also a massive guy and extremely intimidating.  He's a great foe for Rocky to face especially with the added personal conflict of Drago having kill

"You do know that my leg isn't a chew toy, don't you?" -Hiccup It's been a year since the events of the second movie and Berk has become a sanctuary for dragons under the rule of Chief Hiccup (Jay Baruchel).  Meanwhile, the surviving members of Drago's army from the previous film hire the infamous dragon hunter, Grimmel (F. Murray Abraham), to put a stop to Hiccup's raids on their ships.  With Berk too difficult to defend, Hiccup leads the dragons and the vikings to find a legendary utopia where they will all be safe, but to further complicate matters, Toothless meets another Night Fury and quickly falls for her. What Works: How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World is a stunningly beautiful movie.  The animation looks fantastic, especially during the fiery action scenes.  The color of the Hidden World itself is gorgeous and there are some really amazing looking sequences of Toothless and the female Night Fury flying around.  This f

"Theresa falls up the stairs.  Theresa falls down the stairs." -Boone Carlyle The 19th episode of Lost follows Locke (Terry O'Quinn) and Boone (Ian Somerhalder) as they continue to try (and fail) to open the hatch.  As Locke starts to lose feeling in his legs again, he has a dream about a small plane crashing on the island.  He convinces Boone to go with him to find the place convinced that whatever is inside will help them open the hatch.  On the way, they find the corpse of a man from Nigeria, dressed as a priest, and armed with a gun. Locke's legs give out and he tells Boone that he used to be paralyzed from the waist down until crashing on the island.  They eventually find the plane on the edge of a cliff.  Boone climbs insides and finds another dead man dressed as a priest, maps of Nigeria, and crates of Virgin Mary statues with heroin inside.  He also finds a radio and attempts to get it working as the plane's weight starts to shift.  Boone ge

"It takes more than a little fire to kill me!" -Stoick Five years after the events of the previous film, dragons and vikings now live in peace on Berk.  Cheif Stoick (Gerard Butler) is preparing to step down as chief and have his son, Hiccup (Jay Baruchel), take over.  Hiccup is reluctant to do so and spends his time with Toothless exploring uncharted lands.  He accidentally stumbles across a group of dragon trappers who work for a ruthless warlord, Drago (Djimon Hounson), who is building a dragon army to rule the world.  Now Hiccup, the vikings, and the dragons have to stand together to take on the mighty wrath of Drago and his secret weapon. What Works: How to Train Your Dragon 2 does what every sequel should do, continue to develop the characters, expand the story, and do something different.  This movie does all of this extremely well and is very reminiscent of The Empire Strikes Back .  Hiccup continues to grow as a character, we get to see more of t

"Sometimes, dead is better." -Jud Crandall Dr. Louis Creed (Dale Midkiff) and his family move to Ludlow, Maine, where they live next to a busy road.  Soon after, their pet cat, Church, is hit and killed by a truck.  Louis' neighbor, Jud Crandall (Fred Gwynne), takes Louis to an ancient Micmac burial ground to bury Church and, the next day, the cat is back, but different.  Soon, Louis learns the hard way that sometimes, dead is better... What Works: I have not read the Stephen King book this movie is based on, so I have no idea if this is a good adaptation or not.  But I do know that I really enjoyed this film.  It's rare for a horror movie to get to me, but this one did.  It's a spooky film and I was genuinely creeped out by some of the things that happen in this film.  Parts of Pet Sematary are absolute nightmare fuel.  It's not afraid to go to dark places and nobody is safe. Fred Gwynne is freakin' fantastic as Jud Crandall.  I

"Thanks for nothing, you useless reptile." -Hiccup Berk is village of vikings on a remote island that is frequently attacked by dragons.  Hiccup (Jay Baruchel) is the son of the chief and is a bit of a weakling that nobody respects.  In his attempts to prove his worth as a viking, Hiccup manages to capture and wound an extremely rare dragon known as a Night Fury, but he is unwilling to kill it.  Instead, he frees and befriends the dragon and names him Toothless.  Now Hiccup has to find a way to show the other vikings that they don't need to kill the dragons after all. What Works: Hiccup is an extremely likable protagonist.  We get to witness him go through dragon training with the other young vikings, but he simply doesn't have the physical abilities to do what the other vikings can, so he has to rely on his other skills.  Hiccup studies and learns about the dragons and uses that knowledge to find harmless ways to subdue dragons.  As a big anima

"Let's admit it, I'm awkward." -Wendy Diaz Survivor is back, baby, and boy am I hyped!  This was a pretty solid episode of Survivor , even though it probably should have been 90 minutes.  Either way, we got a very entertaining first Tribal Council and now we have to figure out who played well and who sucked!  Let's go to the Edge! Who Played Well: We'll start over on the Kama tribe.  First we have Eric and Gavin who formed the only real alliance we saw on this tribe due to the fact they both want the returning players out, especially Aubry.  I think these two will be really dangerous down the road. Speaking of returning players, Joe, though he didn't want to be Joey Amazing, certainly was.  He was a huge asset at camp and was the best competitor in the challenge.  So far, he's playing the same game he always does, but, in the early days, it's an effective game. Finally, we have Ron, who managed to find the Advantage M

"Now, I want some friggin' answers!" -Hurley The eighteenth episode of Lost focuses on Hurley (Jorge Garcia).  In flashbacks, we learn that Hurley won millions of dollars in the lottery with the numbers 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, and 42.  What follows is a string of bad luck that results in the death of Hurley's grandfather, his house catching fire, and his priest getting struck by lightning.  Convinced that the numbers he used are cursed, Hurley returns to the mental institution he was once a patient at to see another patient, Leonard (Ron Bottitta), who repeats the numbers over and over again and is where Hurley first heard the numbers.  Leonard tells Hurley that he first heard them over a radio transmission with his coworker, Sam Toomey, who lives in Australia.  Hurley travels to the middle of nowhere to find Sam, only to meet his wife, Martha (Jayne Taini), who tells Hurely that Sam used the numbers to win a guessing game and afterward was followed by a string

It's that time again: The Snubby Awards!  For those of you who don't know, the Snubby Awards take a look at all of the Best Picture nominees from a given year and determine if the best film won or if one was snubbed.  If that's the case, they win the coveted Snubby Award! This time we'll be looking at the 2012 Oscars, which had a very weak field in my opinion.  Two of the nominees I hated to the point that they are my two least favorite Best Picture nominees I have seen.  Several others I was underwhelmed by.  The nominees were: The Descendants, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, The Help, Hugo, Midnight in Paris, Moneyball, The Tree of Life,  and War Horse, with the winner being The Artist.   Did The Artist deserve to win or did somebody else get snubbed?  Let's take a look! #9. The Tree of Life Coming in dead last is my least favorite nominee I've seen so far.   The Tree of Life is the story of a dysfunctional family in 1950's

"No, I don't hate Balboa, but I pity the fool." - Clubber Lang Now the Heavyweight Champion of the World, Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone) has defended his title for three years, but none of his opponents have given him a challenge.  Rocky is thinking about retiring until he is challenged by an extremely violent newcomer, Clubber Lang (Mr. T), and loses to him.  Rocky teams up with his old rival, Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers), to train for a rematch against Clubber, but is Rocky past his prime? What Works: The first two Rocky films were easy to get invested in because Rocky Balboa is such a likable guy, but the main reason Rocky III  is investing is because of Clubber Lang.  The guy is a fantastic villain and extremely easy to hate.  Mr. T gives a terrific performance as the vile Clubber.  Apollo Creed was a solid antagonist, but you never hated the guy.  This time, we want to see Clubber lose more than we want to see Rocky win. It's really

"I died eleven times." -Tree Gelbman The morning after the events of the previous film, Carter's (Israel Broussard) roommate, Ryan (Phi Vu), is killed by someone wearing a baby-face mask, only to wake up at the start of the day again.  Carter and Tree (Jessica Rothe) agree to help Ryan stop the killer only to discover the source of the time loops.  Tree quickly finds herself back at the start of her birthday all over again and has to find a way to stop the killer, who may not be the same person as last time, save her friends, and fix the time loop once and for all. What Works: Happy Death Day 2U dials the slasher elements back and focuses more on sci-fi.  This is a time-travel, dimension hopping film.  It feels the the plot of an episode of Rick and Morty at times.  I love that this movie doesn't just do the same thing all over again.  They jump headfirst into a new genre, which is something I would love to see more oftenin the slasher genre.  I&#

"We're not the only people on this island and we all know it!" -John Locke The 17th episode of Lost follows Jin (Daniel Dae Kim), who gets into an argument with his wife, Sun (Yunjin Kim), about the revealing bathing suit she is wearing.  When Michael (Harold Perrineau) tries to intervene, Sun slaps him, but that doesn't stop Jin from interrogating her about something possibly going on between her and Michael.  Sun tries to apologize to Michael later, but he brushes it off telling her it's her problem, not his. Michael continues to work on his raft to get himself and Walt (Malcolm David Kelley) off of the island, though Walt is mostly uninterested in helping.  Sawyer (Josh Holloway) buys his way onto the raft by trading Michael supplies.  That leaves one spot left on the raft.  That night, the raft is found on fire and unsalvageable.  Michael and Sawyer both blame Jin, but Jack (Matthew Fox) and Kate (Evangeline Lilly) try to talk them down. S